Director of Climate Science

The Supercritical mission

Supercritical is the gateway to the carbon removal market. One third of corporate buyers including The Economist, Virgin Atlantic, and Rothschild & Co use Supercritical’s marketplace to navigate the market, build portfolios of high-quality vetted projects, and securely transact across spot purchases and offtake agreements. Supercritical is the marketplace of choice for visionary companies with ambitious climate goals that need to be met today, not decades from now. We recently raised a $13m Series A, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, to accelerate our mission to scale carbon removal to gigatonnes.

Why is carbon removal critical?

Carbon removal includes nature-based solutions like afforestation and cutting-edge technologies that literally pull carbon from the sky and store it underground for millennia. Our team of climate scientists act as an outsourced carbon removal procurement partner to our customers. They source and vet carbon removal projects from the frontier of science with a rigorous method that covers 100s of dimensions across environmental, market, and delivery risk categories. We list only 12% of projects that we vet on our marketplace.

We need to scale to remove 10 billion tons a year by 2050 to stay below 1.5 degrees of warming. This is over 14,000x the rate we are removing carbon at today. We've only removed a few thousand tonnes to date. This will be a trillion dollar industry by 2050.

Role Outcomes and Responsibilities

You will report to the Chief of Operations, leading our Climate team in collaboration with our Supply team. At Supercritical, the Supply team handles the procurement and account management of the suppliers on our platform, while the Climate team ensures the quality of the supplier projects we offer to our clients. Your responsibilities will include maintaining and elevating our vetting standards, staying ahead of industry trends and changes to ensure we remain trusted as a leading carbon removal platform.

• Innovate Climate Vetting: Lead the advancement of cutting-edge climate vetting methodologies and frameworks for diverse Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) methods, building on existing foundations. Ensure thorough and robust evaluation of potential projects to maintain our leadership in the field.
• Thought Leadership & Representation: Champion Supercritical’s position on CDR, carbon markets, and climate policy. Represent our organisation in high-profile discussions and contribute to influential thought leadership articles and presentations, reinforcing our industry influence and client relationships.
• Strategic Climate Leadership: As the climate voice within the executive team, shape our strategic direction and elevate our organisational profile through public speaking and authoritative content creation.
• Sales & Marketing Excellence: Provide technical expertise to support our sales and marketing teams, ensuring our customer offerings are of the highest quality.
• Client Consultancy Leadership: Oversee and deliver technical expertise in our corporate climate consultancy projects, managing emission measurements and guiding clients through their net-zero transition plans effectively.

Requirements

• PhD in natural sciences such as chemistry, chemical engineering, biology, physics, environmental science, or a related field.
• A minimum of 8 years of experience in the climate and sustainability field, with a proven track record of building and managing strong teams, demonstrating leadership and strategic vision.
• Expertise in Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR), including a deep understanding of one specific CDR method and a broad comprehension of the field. Ability to lead the advancement of climate vetting methodologies and frameworks, ensuring thorough and robust evaluation of potential projects.
• A deep understanding of quality assessments in voluntary carbon markets, ensuring the ability to maintain our leadership in the field through rigorous evaluation standards.
• Excellent communication skills with a passion for clear scientific communication. Experience in representing organisations in high-profile discussions and contributing to influential thought leadership articles and presentations, reinforcing our industry influence and client relationships.
• Experience as a strategic leader within an organisation, capable of shaping strategic direction and elevating the organisational profile through public speaking and authoritative content creation.
• Ability to provide technical expertise to support sales and marketing teams, ensuring our customer offerings are of the highest quality.
• Experience in overseeing and delivering technical expertise in corporate climate consultancy projects, managing emission measurements, and guiding clients through their net-zero transition plans effectively.
• Passion for working in fast-paced environments, with a high level of resilience and adaptability to ambiguity, ensuring the ability to thrive in dynamic and evolving conditions.

What values can you expect from your colleagues?

We have set ourselves the mission of leading the carbon removal market to 14,000x its current size by 2050. In order to do that we need brave adventurers that think huge and deliver at speed. We call this the 14,000x mindset.

The key components of the 14,000x mindset are:

• Ownership mentality: We relish autonomy and we create it for others. We are deeply curious and thrive on understanding the root cause of complex problems. We take ownership over our own and our team’s development by giving and soliciting direct and actionable feedback.
• Move fast: We identify the most important problems to solve and cut everything else. We test ideas early so we don’t waste time on dead ends. We default to action and deliver awesome results.
• Radiate positive energy: We come to problems with energy and passion. We nurture new ideas and engage positively in testing them. We inspire our colleagues to go further and are resilient to set backs. We recharge by taking time off. We are here for a great day, not a long day.
• Communicate proactively: We communicate simply and directly. We broadcast updates, insights and lessons learnt, especially when things haven’t gone to plan. We give as much context as possible so our teammates can make great decisions.

Benefits

• Basic salary: £110k - £130k per annum (dependent on experience)
• Generous stock options
• Annual leave: unlimited
• Pension: 3% employer contribution when matched by 5% employee contribution
• Hybrid working: remote first with option to work from a London office 1-2 days per week
• Other benefits: £1000 annual wellbeing allowance and working-from-home equipment budget up to £500
• Monthly company socials
• Purchase high quality carbon removal offsets for your personal emissions from our inventory

Diversity and Inclusion

We’ve been committed to building an inclusive and diverse workplace since day one of the company. We’re the only company we’re aware of with a 50:50 gender balanced list of investors and our day to day processes are always defined with D&I in mind, for example our remote first policy and flexibility around working time.

We are excited to encourage applications and interest from individuals underrepresented in the climate and tech space. Climate change and climate justice is a social issue that cuts across race and gender. We welcome applicants with lived experience across these issues.

Studies have shown that some groups of people, like women, are less likely to apply to a role unless they meet 100% of the job requirements. Whoever you are, if you like one of our jobs, we encourage you to apply as you might just be the candidate we hire!

UK Sponsorship & Applicants currently outside the UK

• UK Work Sponsorship: Unfortunately, at this stage of our growth, we are unable to offer UK sponsorship to applicants.
• Candidates who live outside the UK who are not looking to live and work in the UK, are within 3 hours of the GMT/BST timezone and are willing to travel to London quarterly are encouraged to apply. Please note we will use an Employer of Record arrangement in these circumstances.