Website Sustainability Solutions Group
Decarbonized, healthy, equitable cities for everyone.
Consultants (Multiple Hires)
Full Time, Permanent
Location: Remote (Canada, US or Chile)
ABOUT SUSTAINABILITY SOLUTIONS GROUP
SSG is a 30-person worker co-operative founded in 2001 to carry out creative, challenging, and values-based work. Over the past 20 years, SSG has become a world leader in climate action planning. We aspire to a decarbonized world of thriving people, communities, and ecosystems—a world achieved with diverse collaboration and democratic participation, through analyzing the impacts of our choices, and by regenerative efforts achieving fossil fuels elimination.
Our work includes:
- Energy and emissions modelling and planning for communities and local governments;
- Climate change adaptation and mitigation planning;
- Equitable community engagement;
- Community and health planning;
- Neighbourhood planning and design;
- Energy systems planning;
- Cutting edge climate research, and more.
OUR COMMITMENT TO EQUITY
SSG celebrates diversity and strives to participate in restorative justice, in part by implementing just recruitment practices. We encourage applications from BIPOC, LGBTQIA2+ applicants, applicants with disabilities, and applicants from historically marginalized communities.
ABOUT THIS RECRUITMENT
SSG is seeking to hire a minimum of three new workers to join our stellar project delivery team. From these individuals, we are looking to add certain qualifications, skills, and attributes (“qualities”) to the team.
We do not expect any one individual to have all of the desired qualities. Nor do we want to confine ourselves to grouping particular qualities into three distinct roles. As such, SSG has elected to post a single job that describes the full array of work that these Consultants will perform and the full array of qualities that we think will be required to do this work. Certain qualities will be required for all three roles. Certain qualities will only be required for one or two of the roles.
With this in mind, we encourage applicants to identify which of the qualities they will bring to the role and for which of the job responsibilities they feel most suited.
ABOUT THE POSITION
GENERAL DESCRIPTION (APPLIES TO ALL CONSULTANTS)
Each Consultant will work to deliver SSG’s projects. Responsibilities of all Consultants include:
- Leading and supporting climate action planning project work,
- Interfacing with clients and stakeholders,
- Interpreting, analyzing, and reporting, on financial, energy and emissions data,
- Report writing,
- Policy reviews,
- Data collection and research,
- Quality assurance, and
- Knowledge management.
In addition to project work, all workers at SSG contribute to SSG’s strategic and organizational development. Consultants will be expected to assist and/or lead internal projects that may be related to strategic development, organizational knowledge management, or internal organizational equity work, among other things, on an as-needed basis.
SSG’s ideal candidate is looking for long-term employment, with an interest in becoming a committed member-owner of the co-operative.
RESPONSIBILITIES (APPLY TO ONLY CERTAIN CONSULTANTS)
SSG Consultants work alongside a team to lead and deliver on climate action plans. This work includes Project Management, Client Relationship Management, Facilitation, Data Analysis, Data Modelling, and Report Writing.
It is expected that a Consultant will excel in at least two of the following numbered areas.
1. Project Delivery Leadership
- Leading and managing interdisciplinary teams to deliver climate action plans and related projects,
- Coordinating with and supporting project team members in project development and delivery,
- Being a primary point of contact with clients,
- Facilitating meetings with clients and answering client questions regarding our work,
- Liaising with policy makers at all government levels on policy and program development,
- Attending or leading project engagement workshops in supporting or facilitating capacities, and
- Writing reports and plans.
2. Energy and Emissions Policy and Analysis
- Developing emissions and accounting inventories,
- Identifying data needed to perform GHG emissions modelling and aiding SSG technical staff with data collection,
- Organizing and evaluating modelling data using a variety of tools including spreadsheets and Geographic Information Systems (GIS),
- Writing and editing reports for different states of a project,
- Completing background reviews of municipal policies, reports and other published documents to gain insight into cities’ energy and emissions goals,
- Researching and briefing Project Leads about provincial/state and federal policies and how they relate to energy and emissions planning, and
- Identifying and assessing innovative policies at the municipal/state/provincial levels.
3. Electricity Grid Modeling and Planning
- Working with electricity grid planning models, ideally open source,
- Evaluating the impacts of electrification on demand and supply,
- Evaluating transmission and distribution systems a a regional, state/provincial or national level,
- Relevant programming skills,
- Modelling decarbonization pathways for electrical grids,
- Understanding of power markets operations, and
- Understanding of the state of relevant policy discussions.
4. Climate Change Adaptation/Vulnerability/Resilience Project Delivery
- Working with General Circulation Models (GCM), especially RCP and SSP scenarios to develop downscaling and integrating different climate models results,
- Developing qualitative and quantitative risk assessment models,
- Developing GIS models to assess threats, exposure, vulnerability (sensitivity and adaptive capacity) and risk,
- Modelling climate adaptation actions and assess resilience,
- Carrying out financial assessments of risks,
- Writing and editing project reports,
- Completing background reviews of municipal policies, reports and other published documents to gain insight into cities’ current and future risks, and
- Researching and briefing Project Leads about provincial/state and federal policies and how they relate to climate related risk management.
5. Climate Action Plan Implementation
- Assessing current urban planning policies,
- Critically assessing current urban planning policies,
- Understanding municipal government structures and developing system change models required to implement climate action plans in their organizations,
- Developing concrete proposals to boost urban planning to achieve climate action goals,
- Urban modeling (transportation, housing, waste management, etc.),
- Identifying applicable and available funding mechanisms to support policy implementation, and
- Facilitating or engaging with stakeholder and advisory groups to support policy development and implementation.
6. Engagement
At least one of the Consultants hired will work with SSG’s Engagement team to deliver stakeholder and wider public engagement following International Association for Public Participation (IAP2) standards. This work includes designing and facilitating workshops (in person and virtually), designing and interpreting surveys, facilitating small group discussions and larger, town-hall style meetings, and conducting interviews.
7. Latin American Project Delivery
At least one of the Consultants hired will support the delivery of projects in Latin America. (SSG currently has staff in Chile with active projects in Perú, Argentina, Uruguay, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua ). The Consultant will bring technical and project delivery expertise described above, but will be capable of doing so in Spanish and with an understanding of the Latin American context. The Consultant may also be brought in to work on Spanish-language components of projects in the US (e.g. engagement).
WHO WE ARE LOOKING FOR
Successful candidates will have all the following qualifications and attributes:
- Passion for and dedication to climate action planning
- Demonstrated ability to think critically and creatively, and to problem-solve
- High degree of self-motivation and ability to work independently
- Proven track record of success working on project teams
- Entrepreneurial outlook and ability to take initiative
- Excellent written and oral communications skills
- Strong analytical skills and attention to detail
- Comfort working virtually with a distributed workforce
- Commitment to social justice
- Flexibility to adapt to different levels of workloads and schedules
- Ability to work in a non-hierarchical environment
- Kindness and a collaborative spirit
Successful candidates will have some the following qualifications and attributes:
- Professional engineer (P. Eng.) designation
- Bilingual Spanish-English
- Municipal Government experience in Canada, US or Latin America
- Experience managing projects with budgets over $200,000
- Formal training in engagement and/or facilitation
- Excellent data analysis skills, including experience with data modelling
- Background in financial and/or economic analysis of climate action scenarios
The following qualifications and attributes are considered assets but are not requirements for successful candidates:
- Familiarity with and/or enthusiasm for worker co-operatives
- Experience with city planning
- Experience with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and GIS software such as QGIS
- Canadian Institute of Planners (CIP) or American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) designation
- Experience with municipal asset management planning
- Experience with energy utilities data
- Experience with corporate-scale energy analysis
- Familiarity with with energy grid electrification
- Excellent negotiation skills
- Bilingual French-English
- Other languages spoken
SOFTWARE
SSG’s primary software tools include Google Workspace, Microsoft Office, Adobe (Acrobat DC, InDesign), Slack, Zoom, Wrike, and Zotero. Previous knowledge of these tools is not necessarily required and can be taught on the job.
SALARY, BENEFITS
SSG workers are paid according to a salary scale that factors in years of professional experience relevant to their position, as well as years worked at SSG. The salary scale applies equally to all workers, regardless of their position in the organization. The salary range for 2022 is $60,300 -$76,000 for non-members and $62,900-$81,800 for members*. SSG targets an additional 15% base salary top-up at the end of the year, for all workers past their probationary period, when finances allow.
SSG offers its Canadian workers a group benefits package, which includes health, dental, and vision. Workers in the US and Chile are offered equivalent health coverage or a stipend so that they can seek their own coverage.
SSG also offers flexible holiday pay, two weeks of health & family care leave, 3 weeks of paid vacation, and a stipend for professional development.
*Amounts are in Canadian dollars. For US-based employees, SSG will convert these ranges to US dollars. SSG’s Chilean payscale is not yet in place. We expect it to be in place by the time we conduct interviews for these roles.
WORKING AT SSG AND WORK LOCATION
SSG has a relatively flat staff structure and payscale. Climate change and social justice values are embedded throughout our organization and work. SSG is a distributed organization with staff in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Texas, and Chile.
The Consultant will work from home or a shared office with occasional out of town travel for work. Applicants from outside of Canada, the US, and Chile are welcome to apply, however, they must be eligible to work in those countries. Our typical work hours fall within the Pacific, Eastern, and Atlantic time zones. All candidates must also be available during these hours (9 AM – 5 PM) in one of these time zones. Extensive work at a computer is required. SSG offers flexible work hours. Occasional overtime may be required.
APPLICATION
If interested, please email a resume to the hiring team at work@ssg.coop no later than midnight Pacific Time on July 3, 2022.
Instead of a cover letter, please provide brief answers to the following questions (1 page max, please):
- How did you hear about this job opening?
- What are the top three things that interest you about this role and why?
- What are your top three attributes that make you a fit for this role?
- What’s something about yourself that you consider interesting (hobbies, favorite piece of art/literature/music, secret talent, etc.)?
Please send all documents as a single file.
If you need application assistance or accommodation due to a disability, please contact work@ssg.coop or call the hiring lead at 613 899-8735 between the hours of 9AM – 5PM (Eastern Time).
Depending on the number of applicants, we may be able to contact only those candidates whom we wish to interview.