Head of Sustainable Waste Management

At Tesco, we believe in the power of spending more time together, face to face, than apart. So, during your working week, you can expect to spend 60% of your time in one of our office locations or local sites and the rest remotely. We also recognise that life looks a little different for each of us. Some people are at the start of their careers, some want the freedom to do the things they love. Others are going through life-changing moments like becoming a carer, nearing retirement, adapting to parenthood, or something else. That’s why at Tesco, we always welcome a conversation about flexible working. So, talk to us throughout your application about how we can support.

We are delighted to share an exciting opportunity has arisen within our Quality team here at Tesco for a Head of Sustainable Waste Management.

This role will see the successful candidate lead Tesco's Group sustainable waste management strategy. Setting the strategy for waste and recycling at Tesco, supporting business cases and decisions, taking into account the wider business and external stakeholders whilst ensuring there is understanding and compliance to relevant waste regulations. 

• Accountability for setting and driving Tesco's sustainable waste management strategy.
• Accountability for our waste streams (excl. food waste), with a focus on the bottom of our waste hierarchy (prioritising waste collected in store, dotcom or RSU).
• Collection, processing and finding sustainable markets for packaging, post-animal feed food and all other waste streams (cardboard, electricals, fashion, etc).
• Accountability for effective waste supplier management, including contract management, contractual terms compliance, standards, spend are as agreed in contract.
• Accountability for leading our strategy on PRNs and other relevant regulations.
• Identifying and introducing to the business, innovations that help meet our objectives.
• Accountability for effective volume forecasting and reporting for waste streams, including overall tonnages as well as recycling and contamination tonnages.
• Linking accurate forecasting to spend and volume predictions to meet compliance expectations. Ensure link to accurate budget forecasting and reporting. Use forecasting and reporting data to identify areas of strategic focus to close gaps to expectation.
• Strategic review of effectiveness and leading improvements of processes and policies within stores and RSUs e.g. new soft plastics collection or segregation specifications, legislative changes, new waste streams, updates to training materials, reaffirming guidance etc.
• Accountability for issues resolution of store, RSU, general estate issues across all waste and recycling streams. Including issues relating to service provision, stream contamination, equipment failure, specialist waste enquiries, complaints and enquiries.
• Facilitating effective collaboration with relevant internal stakeholders across QTS, Procurement, Commercial, Assurance and Channels. Building NWTs as needed.
• Accountability for business management, developing and implementing mechanisms to track and monitor business adherence to waste management policies and processes. Proactive implementation of KPIs to encourage positive behaviour and improve performance against savings and ESG targets e.g. contamination levels at store.
• Accountability for business continuity planning, overseeing creation and approval of business continuity planning for supplier failures, necessitated supplier exit, macroeconomic events.
• Setting up the new waste and cycling team, establishing ways of working and ensuring operational effectiveness.
• Part of waste leadership teams.
• Effective collaboration with Head of Sustainable Packaging and Food Surplus to ensure management of areas of overlap.
• Part of wider sustainability leadership team, inputting into Eliminate Waste pillar of the Planet Plan.

• Leading or working in complex NWTs
• Working with external stakeholders
• Ideally experience in both creating and driving strategy as well as delivery of plans
• Deep waste/recycling management experience OR regulation understanding
• Supplier management

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We’re all about the little helps. That’s why we make sure our Tesco colleague benefits package takes care of you – both in and out of work. Click Here to find out more!

• Annual bonus scheme of up to 45% of base salary
• Car Cash Allowance
• Holiday starting at 25 days plus a personal day (plus Bank holidays)
• Private medical insurance
• Retirement savings plan - save between 6% - 10% and Tesco will contribute 1.5 times this amount
• 26 weeks maternity and adoption leave (after 1 years’ service) at full pay, followed by 13 weeks of Statutory Maternity Pay or Statutory Adoption Pay, we also offer 6 weeks fully paid paternity leave

Our vision at Tesco is to become every customer's favourite way to shop, whether they are at home or out on the move. Our core purpose is ‘Serving our customers, communities and planet a little better every day’. Serving means more than a transactional relationship with our customers. It means acting as a responsible and sustainable business for all stakeholders, for the communities we are part of and for the planet.

Diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) at Tesco means that whoever you are and whatever your background, we always want you to feel represented and that you can be yourself at work. In short, we’re a place where Everyone’s Welcome. We’re proud to have been accredited Disability Confident Leader and we’re committed to providing a fully inclusive and accessible recruitment process. For further information on the accessibility support we can offer, please click here.

We’re a big business and we can offer a range of diverse full-time & part-time working patterns across our many business areas, which means that we can find something that works for you.  We work in a more blended pattern -combining office and remote working.  Our offices will continue to be where we connect, collaborate and innovate.