Sustainability Assistant – Deforestation

Aldi is seeking a Sustainability Assistant – Deforestation in Atherstone, UK, to support the National Sustainability Manager in implementing the Deforestation Strategy. The role involves engaging with stakeholders, managing compliance with new legislation, and improving supply chain practices related to deforestation and fairly traded commodities. The candidate will prioritize multiple tasks, provide updates, and ensure accurate reporting on deforestation-related issues.
Atherstone, Warwickshire

Aldi

Working closely with the National Sustainability Manager, you’ll play a vital role in making sure everything runs smoothly.

National Sustainability is part of our core values, so you’ll be on the front line, celebrating best practice with industry bodies, NGO’s, retailers and suppliers. You will be considered a specialist in your given field and will be immersed in a wide variety of different tasks involving putting proposals together, training new staff members and liaising with stakeholders.

We do things our own way at Aldi. But whatever we’re doing, we must be getting it right. With a wave of impressive sales figures behind us, we’re opening new stores at lightning speed. And that means managing our National Sustainability is more crucial than ever before.

This role will involve supporting the National Sustainability Manager to deliver ALDI UK & Ireland’s Deforestation Strategy. Aldi has committed to eliminating deforestation from its supply chain (high-risk commodities) by the end of 2025 and needs the right person to support in meeting this ambition. The successful candidate will be responsible for supporting Aldi UK and Ireland in progressing our performance across a range of deforestation areas including but not limited to Palm Oil, Soy, Timber, Beef, Fish and Seafood etc.

The EU and UK are facing new requirements regarding deforestation including legislations (EUDR, upcoming UK legislation) and so the successful candidate will need to steer Aldi UK and Ireland through these requirements. The candidate will need to liaise with colleagues in our commercial team and our key suppliers to drive adoption of deforestation free commodities.

This role shall also be responsible for Aldi’s work on our fairly traded commodities (Cocoa, Coffee, Tea, Bananas, Sugar etc.). This will involve managing compliance to strict certifications, engaging with internal stakeholders on opportunities for new fairly traded products and increasing our coverage of certified Fairtrade, Rainforest Alliance and more products.

The role will require ensuring Aldi’s reporting on deforestation is as accurate as possible, engage with suppliers to address deforestation risk, identify new opportunities in the market and develop our approach to the topic further. This will entail investigating and improving the traceability and tracking of our in-scope commodities. There will also be a need to support the development of an Ireland specific Soy strategy for Aldi IE.

The successful candidate will be responsible for managing their own time to prioritise multiple tasks and deadlines across a variety of projects. This will include providing updates and seeking sign off from the NSUST Manager at regular updates.

If you’re always striving to improve and want to join a really important part of the business, apply to join today!

Your New Role
• Being the go-to person for topics including Forests, Deforestation, Reforestation, High Risk Commodities and Fairly Traded Commodities
• Supporting Aldi’s performance and progress toward eliminating Deforestation in our supply chain
• Working with Aldi teams to ensure our compliance to upcoming relevant legislations
• Supporting on product certifications to 3rd party accreditations (RSPO etc.)
• Responsible for Aldi’s work on our fairly trade commodities (Cocoa, Coffee etc.)
• Working on multiple tasks and deadlines in a variety of projects
• Seek new opportunities from our supply chain to develop Aldi’s approach to Deforestation
• Data analysis and reporting
• Internal colleague and supplier engagement