Environmental Sustainability Manager - Permitting and Consents

About the role

To lead the implementation of the Building New Futures strategy across a portfolio of projects or a major programme, ensuring compliance, performance, and innovation.

This role provides strategic guidance, manages teams, and embeds sustainability into operational delivery and decision-making.

• Demonstrate visible sustainability leadership across the portfolio, engaging regularly with project teams to promote accountability, collaboration, innovation and a sustainable mindset.
• Lead the implementation of the Environmental Sustainability Strategy and Bridging the Gap actions across a portfolio of projects, a major project, or region, ensuring alignment with business priorities and Building New Futures commitments.
• Act as a trusted advisor to Project Directors and senior stakeholders, providing strategic guidance on compliance and sustainability, and influencing decision-making to embed a culture of environmental leadership.
• Provide strategic sustainability expertise across the project lifecycle, including early-stage planning, permitting, and risk mitigation. Support the development and review of environmental documentation such as plans, permits, and assessments, and advise on embedding sustainability into work winning and operational delivery.
• Oversee environmental compliance across the remit, including audits, inspections, and engagement with clients and regulators, ensuring adherence to ISO
  14001 and the Business Management System (BMS).
• Represent the Environmental Sustainability function in work winning activities, responding to bespoke sustainability questions and promoting innovation.
• Translate sustainability data into operational improvements and ensure accurate reporting of performance, incidents, and KPIs via the Sustainability Portal and other client or business systems.
• Drive continuous improvement by sharing best practice, lessons learned, and innovations across the remit.

• Communicate global mega-trends driving the need to transform the world to sustainability.
• Communicate the concept of sustainable development
• Regional strategy implementation
• Team leadership and capability development
• Strategic stakeholder engagement
• Ability to lead multi-disciplinary teams and embed sustainability into project delivery.
• Environmental documentation and permitting
• Business Management System (BMS) and ISO 14001
• Work winning and operational sustainability integration
• Understanding of sustainability requirements in tendering and bid processes.
• Overseeing compliance across multiple projects
• Translating data into operational improvements
• Representing sustainability in bids and client engagements
• Leading environmental input into project mobilisation and close‑out.
• Degree in environmental / sustainability-related field preferred
• Registered Environmental Practitioner (REnvP) preferred, may be working towards Chartered Environmentalist (CEnv).

Day in, day out, our teams deliver some of the UK's most ambitious, exciting and meaningful projects; developing, building and maintaining the vital infrastructure that supports national economies and strengthens communities.

As if contributing to and supporting work that makes life better for millions wasn’t rewarding enough, we offer a full range of benefits too. You’ll have the freedom to shape the package that’s right for you and your life. Here are some of our key benefits:

• Smart working, giving you more flexibility such as staggered start and finish times, with up to 40% remote working, where roles allow.
• 25 days paid annual leave (pro rata).
• Family friendly policies which include 28 weeks full pay for maternity/adoption leave and four weeks full pay for paternity/partners leave.
• Pension, share incentive plan, volunteering leave, recognition schemes and much more…

Balfour Beatty’s Highways business delivers major schemes including motorway upgrade programmes, complex national infrastructure projects and regional investment programme works for National Highways. We have a strong orderbook and a positive pipeline of opportunities, we put the road user, at the heart of everything we do. We work safely,…