Green Finance Officer (Wales)

Green Finance Officer (Wales) 


Salary: £35,000 – £40,000


Location: Home-based, Office facilities available, some UK travel will be required


Full Time: 35 hours per week


Fixed-Term: 18 months 

Closing date for applications: 2 June 2024


First Interview: 6 June 2024


Second Interview: 10 June 2024 

About Us

This project is funded by the Nature Networks Programme. The Heritage Fund is delivering it on
behalf of the Welsh Government. 

Do you want to be part of a team leading the field in the development of private investment
into nature’s recovery? 

In the past 18 months, The Wildlife Trusts have been developing new approaches to funding
nature’s recovery from the private sector, utilising novel revenue approaches such as nutrient
neutrality credits and the voluntary carbon market amongst others. We have developed finance
mechanisms to sit alongside these revenue streams such as a philanthropic loan system. We now
want to scale up this work to help The Wildlife Trusts and others to scale nature’s recovery
across Wales. We need to turn policy into strong principles that allows us to develop
guidelines and templates to help the Wildlife Trusts across Wales access green finance. 

We need dedicated expertise and capacity to work with Wildlife Trusts to bring this work into a
coherent strategy, develop models and plans that build revenues for nature’s recovery allowing
much greater investment. This post is designed to provide that expertise and capacity to work
alongside those Wildlife Trust staff that are already committed to developing these
programmes. 

The Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts (RSWT) is the central charity which supports the
federation of 46 independent Wildlife Trusts working for nature’s recovery across the UK,
Alderney and the Isle of Man. The Wildlife Trusts’ vision is of a thriving natural world, with
abundant wildlife and healthy natural habitats playing a valued role in addressing the climate
and ecological emergencies, and everyone inspired to take action for nature’s recovery. 

Collectively, The Wildlife Trusts have more than 900,000 members, look after over 2,300 nature
reserves, operate 123 visitor and education centres and own 29 working farms. The role of RSWT
is to ensure a strong voice for wildlife at a UK level and to provide strategic leadership,
support and development for The Wildlife Trusts. We provide shared expertise in areas such as
climate change, digital fundraising, nature-based solutions, policy and safeguarding. We
facilitate UK-wide communities of practice to share learning and replicate successful
approaches so that together we are more than the sum of our parts. We support the individual
Wildlife Trusts to be a strong force for nature in their local areas and to work together to
achieve even greater impact as a collective. 

The Wildlife Trusts are on a mission to bring about a people-powered nature and climate
recovery by empowering people to take meaningful action for nature, and to create an inclusive
society where nature matters to everyone, everywhere. We are ambitious in our desire not just
to slow, but to reverse the declines in nature. Together we have developed a bold, new
collective strategy which outlines our vision and the actions we will take to restore nature
over the next eight years. 

Central to our strategy are our three goals which set out what we are striving to achieve by
2030 in pursuit of our vision of a thriving natural world. Goal 1 is to put nature into
recovery with abundant, diverse wildlife and natural processes creating wilder land and
seascapes where people and nature thrive. Goal 2 is to inspire people to take action for nature
and climate, resulting in better decision-making for the environment at both local level and
across the four UK nations. And Goal 3 is to enable nature to play a central and valued role in
helping to address local and global problems, such as by helping tackle climate change and
supporting wellbeing and education. 

Achieving these ambitious objectives means that we must develop new ways of working which
increase the scale and impact of our work. Therefore, we have embarked on a programme of
strategic transformations that are essential to achieving our goals, and which will result in a
stronger and more effective Wildlife Trust movement for the long term. RSWT is leading the
transformation programme across The Wildlife Trusts including in community organising,
equality, diversity and inclusion, and funding nature’s recovery. The Wildlife Trusts have
existed for over 100 years thanks to a strong membership base and traditional fundraising
activities.

Now, to achieve the level of funding needed to reverse nature’s decline, we need to diversify
and increase our income by exploring new ways of funding such as innovative finance. 

About You 

You will be from a commercial background within private, public or charitable sector. You will
have an entrepreneurial approach grounded by great commercial experience. We would expect an
understanding of the green finance marketplace and that you are comfortable with legal and
contract management. You will be a great communicator, with a personable style who can work
with many different people across the wonderful variety of geography, business development, and
activities of the Wildlife Trusts. 

You relish challenging the status quo and problem solving. This is a new and ambitious role
which will evolve following your appointment so you should be excited by the flexibility and
opportunities to take an innovative approach. 

The Wildlife Trusts value passion, respect, trust, integrity, pragmatic activism and strength
in diversity. Whilst we are passionate in promoting our aims, we are not judgemental and are
inclusive. We particularly encourage applications from people who are underrepresented within
our sector, including people from minority backgrounds and people with disabilities. We are
committed to creating a movement that recognises and truly values individual differences and
identities. 

RSWT take our Safeguarding responsibilities extremely seriously. Please refer to the documents
section to read our commitment statement 

As a Disability Confident employer, we are committed to offering an interview to anyone with a
disability that meets all the essential criteria for the post. Please let us know if you
require any adjustments to make our recruitment process more accessible. 

This role maybe subject to a DBS check.