Supply Change Research Assistant

Forest Trends, a not-for-profit organization based in Washington, DC, helps bridge traditional divides and promotes conservation of forests and other ecosystems through the creation and wide adoption of a broad range of environmental finance, markets, and other payment and incentive mechanisms by:

  • Providing transparent information on ecosystem values, finance, and markets through knowledge acquisition, analysis, and dissemination;
  • Convening diverse coalitions, partners and communities of practice, to promote environmental values and advance development of new markets and payment mechanisms;
  • Demonstrating successful tools, standards, and models of innovative finance for conservation.

Program Description

Forest Trends’ Supply Change Initiative is a resource for businesses, investors, governments, and the civil society organizations that support and hold them accountable; providing information on the extent and value of commitments and their implementation to achieve reductions in commodity-driven deforestation.

As the markets for these commodities evolve, so will Supply Change. Our team will explore new metrics, new markets, and new means to inform game-changing supply chain solutions. We encourage companies and other stakeholders to provide the Supply Change team with additional resources that will enhance and expand our market coverage.

Supply Change offers the following tools and resources:

  • Free access web platform (www.supply-change.org) with +470 company profiles
  • Publications
  • Newsletters
  • Featured Articles; and,
  • Convenings & Webinars.

Job Summary

Forest Trends’ Supply Change Initiative is looking to hire a Research Assistants (RA) who will follow our Supply Change Research Methodology to discover and record company commitments to reduce or eliminate deforestation in a sophisticated cloud-based relational database management system, which will subsequently be published on the initiative’s free-to-access, publicly-available web platform: www.Supply-Change.org.

We are looking for someone who is curious, data-savvy, organized, and a great communicator – who is just as happy interpreting individual company policies as they are in analyzing large datasets. They should be interested in environmental issues and corporate sustainability, particularly relating to deforestation, and always ready to learn more. If that sounds like you, we’d love to hear from you.

Roles and Responsibilities

  • 70% time – Company research
    • Use Supply Change data submission forms to collect publicly available data on corporate commodity use, and commitments to reduce/eliminate negative impacts on forest ecosystems and persons.
  • 30% time – Other responsibilities, including but not limited to:
    • Contribute to reports and other contract deliverables
    • Contribute to our expanding methodology around impact metrics
    • Improve analytical capacities through Power BI, Excel, and other platforms
    • Post news and resources to the supply-change.org
    • Generate Twitter content and develop content for the Supply Change newsletter
    • Data entry of corporate sustainability memberships

Required Experience and Education:

  • Bachelor’s-level degree;
  • 1-2 years of work or internship experience in government, private, and/or nonprofit organization, preferably with working on the following topics: corporate sustainability practices and reports; supply chain management; corporate governance; or monitoring and evaluation.

Required Skills:

  • Research: Excellent research skills and experience, and willingness to complete repetitive research tasks – demonstrated experience with qualitative data collection and interpretation preferred.
  • Communication: Strong communication skills, with demonstrated experience communicating complex and technical concepts in a clear and effective way; experience in report-writing preferred.
  • Data analysis: Strong skills in Excel formulas – knowledge of Power BI or data visualization programs preferred;
  • Database management: Knowledge of data management systems (ideally Caspio);
  • Subject-matter Expertise: Interest in / ability to gain expertise on agricultural commodity-related deforestation and corporate sustainability issues; knowledge of corporate ownership structure and commodity certifications preferred.
  • Languages: Additional languages from countries operating in or sourcing from areas with tropical deforestation (Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Indonesian, etc.) (preferred)
  • Committed to the mission of Forest Trends.

Location:

Forest Trends’ Washington DC office
1203 19th Street, NW 4th Floor Washington, DC 20036

Availability:

Must be available for hire on a 6-month contract, beginning in March

Pay:

$15 per hour

Apply:

Please send a cover letter (no more than 1 page) and resume (no more than 2 pages) to khamrick@nullecosystemmarketplace.com. Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis through March 8, 2019.

Forest Trends is an equal opportunity employer. Forest Trends will not discriminate against any applicant for employment on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, or veteran status.