Sustainability & ESG Co-Op 2026

The objective of the Student Programs at Nexteer Automotive is to select students with high potential and provide them with "real world" work experiences. Work assignments expose students to many of the company’s products, processes and procedures. Assignments are designed to assimilate acquired classroom education with actual hands-on work experience in a technical environment. In addition, Nexteer Automotive gains the opportunity to find new talent to enhance productivity while providing students exposure to full-time career opportunities.

 

The Sustainability & ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) Co-Op reports to the Executive Director of Sustainability & ESG, assisting global sustainability initiatives at Nexteer. The scope of this position is cross-functional, encompassing multi-disciplinary fields, including but not limited to, sustainability (environmental and social topics), supply chain, information systems, data analytics, ESG risk management, sales & marketing, and engineering. The Intern will assist in liaising between relevant corporate functions, divisions, and external collaboration partners to support efficiency and effectiveness improvements.

 

Key responsibilities include:

• Support cross-functional Sustainability Work Group (SWG) initiatives: Collaborate with relevant processes from scope setting, benchmarking, and analyses. Assist in managing sustainability-related risks and controls, and validate ESG information for continual improvement to support informed decisions 
• Assist ESG benchmarking and data analytics projects: Gather unstructured data for a consolidated tracker of sustainability performance, such as energy efficiency, carbon emission, and sustainable procurement. Collaborate with IT and business functions to develop visualization tools/dashboards for business decision-makers 
• Capture key takeaways and knowledge transfer: Work with internal and external subject matter experts (SMEs) to enable organizational capacity and competencies building 
• Collaborate with internal and external stakeholders: Explore and develop projects focused on ESG risk management and data analytics 
• Conduct exploratory research on sustainability topics: Gather stakeholder requirements and collect information to support the identification of important trends and action plans to drive efficiency opportunities and mitigate material ESG risks 
• Support cross-functional digitalization initiatives: Integrate sustainability & ESG perspectives into digitalization efforts 
• Coordinate cross-functional efforts: Support sustainability-related ratings and ESG risk assessments 
• Support communications and presentations: Deliver key findings and recommendations for senior leadership 
• Ad hoc assignments: Perform additional tasks as assigned by functional leads

 

Job Requirements

• Candidate must be attending a 4-year university local to Auburn Hills, MI
• Candidate must be pursuing a degree in Sustainability/ESG-related studies, Business, Data Analytics, Information Systems, Engineering, program management or related degree
• Masters degree preferred
• Candidate must have experience with data analytics and visualization 
• Candidate must have the ability to interpret and convert data analytics to easily understood business languages for stakeholders with non-technical backgrounds 
• Candidate must have effective project management and communication skills, have a positive attitude, and be a collaborator within a global cross-functional team structure 
• Candidate must have a minimum cumulative 3.0 GPA on a 4.0 scale 
• Candidate must be able to work 20-32 hours per week during Fall and Winter semesters
• up to 40 hours per week during the summer (primary office location in Auburn Hills, MI with occasional travel to Saginaw, MI facilities) 
• Flexibility to accommodate global meetings

 

Preferred Qualifications:

• Knowledge of Sustainability & ESG disclosure frameworks and platforms strongly preferred 
• Knowledge of GHG protocol and relevant ISO standards 
• Knowledge of LCA (life cycle assessment) and related databases and tools strongly preferred 
• Working experience in collaborating with engineering and operational teams to identify improvement opportunities and decarbonization initiatives
• Lean Six Sigma certification and relevant training beneficial
• Experience in data analytics projects and coordinating with business