Sustainability & Social Value Officer (Maternity Cover - 12 months)

Duration: This is a Maternity Cover position for a period of up to 12 months. Start Date 01/10/2024

Language Empire, a leading provider of face-to-face interpreting and translation services, is seeking a Sustainability and Social Value Manager to join our team. With a focus on providing high-quality language solutions to public sector organizations throughout the UK, we pride ourselves on our dedication to delivering exceptional service in over 500 languages. As the Sustainability and Social Value Manager, you will play a vital role in ensuring that our company continues to operate responsibly and ethically, while also making a positive impact on society.

As the Sustainability and Social Value Manager at Language Empire, you will have the opportunity to contribute directly to our corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. In collaboration with senior management, you will develop and implement strategies that encourage sustainable practices and enhance our social value. Your responsibilities will include overseeing our environmental impact, developing partnerships with local communities, and working closely with our diverse range of interpreters and translators to promote inclusivity and diversity.

The Role

• Building Relationships: Manage and build relationships with internal and external stakeholders to manage sustainability and social value initiatives across the organisation.
• Communication: Support internal and external communication of sustainability and social value to improve awareness, engagement, and participation.
• Sustainability Strategy: Create and implement a comprehensive sustainability strategy aligned with our organisational values and goals. Identify opportunities for sustainability improvements across the business and implement change.
• Social Value Strategy: Develop and contribute to our existing Social Value policy and procedures. Identify opportunities for improvements and implement positive change. 
• Carbon Emissions Reduction: Lead our efforts to understand our emissions, set targets, measure, reduce, and offset our carbon emissions. Agree a plan with ambitious targets and work with our different teams to implement carbon reduction initiatives.
• Cultural Sustainability: Work alongside our department managers to promote initiatives that support employee engagement, diversity, equity, and inclusion.
• Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): Work closely with internal and external stakeholders to improve our CSR offerings, ensuring we raise our profile on our community and our impact is positive and meaningful.
• Sustainability Reporting: Prepare and publish reports on our progress and communicate to relevant leaders and Bid Management team who will spread the word about the wonderful things we do.
• Supplier Engagement: Work closely with suppliers to promote sustainable practices, ethical sourcing, and responsible production methods. Ensure that improvement is measured and tracked.
• Research and Innovation: Stay up-to-date with the latest sustainability trends, regulations, and best practices particularly in the health care industry. Recommend and implement innovative solutions to improve our sustainability efforts
• Social Impact Activity Reporting: Measure and report the impact of community and social impact activity in line with widely used frameworks, including benchmarking performance internally and externally.

Requirements

• Degree in Sustainability, Environmental Science, Business, or a related field.
• Familiarity with the Social Value Act
• Passionate about sustainability and social value. You must be keen to make a real difference, with a strong background in corporate sustainability.
• Great communication, people and influencing skills, able to work collaboratively and supportively across different functions to drive up engagement and participation.
• Proven experience in social impact and sustainability management, preferably within the healthcare sector or related fields.
• Excellent analytical skills, with the ability to collect, analyse, and interpret data effectively.
• Desire to consistently improve processes, documents and practice.
• Self-motivated, working under own initiative and delivering high-quality outputs.
• Knowledge and understanding of public procurement and competitive bidding requirements in the context of social value and sustainability delivery.
• Ability to reliably commute to the office.

Benefits

Become part of our team at Language Empire and you’ll find an inclusive culture which prizes mutual respect, innovation and high performance. Hard work deserves great benefits:

Health and Well-being Support:

• Doctorline: 24/7 telephone access to a practising UK GP.
• Togetherall: A safe online space to get the support you need, in confidence.
• Structured Counselling: Professional mental health support

Information and Assistance:

• 24 Hour Advice Line: Confidential guidance on medical, legal or domestic issues.
• Eldercare Advice: A Telephone Care Advisory Service for support with caring responsibilities.

Discount and Savings:

• Discounts and special offers at hundreds of retailers, restaurants and destinations.
• Savings on Gym membership, health clubs and leisure centres, as well as discounted online subscriptions.

Office perks:

• Free tea and coffee
• Fresh fruit delivered weekly
• 'Dress Down’ Fridays
• Quarterly team outings/activities

Who are we?

EMPIRE GROUP is on a mission to revolutionize the translation & interpretation industry. Since, its establishment in 2001, the company is providing professional interpreters mostly to public sector organizations in the UK. We have been supplying interpreting and translation services locally and nationwide covering 200 core languages and dialects throughout the UK. To date, our 20,000+ strong workforce of face-to-face interpreters speak over 435 languages and dialects as well as rare and exotic languages. Our 1,000+ translators are all UK-based with a cover for over 200 languages which can be translated to and from English. We have robust systems to manage our pool of translators and interpreters across the country.

Our Vision: “To become the UK’s leading provider of translation, interpreting and related services for the public and private sectors.”

Our Mission: “To provide outstanding services that bridge the language barrier while respecting and celebrating cultural diversity.”

We value: PEACE – People -> Ethical Conduct -> Assured Excellence -> Clients -> Equality & Diversity

Language Empire is proud to be a Disability Confident and Real Living Wage accredited Employer!