Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF) Demand Manager - Climate-Aligned Industries

Job Description:

Do you love solving challenging problems, thinking about dynamic systems, and working collaboratively in groups? Do you have the self-motivation, curiosity, creativity, and ability to guide others toward meaningful results? Do you have a passion for making the world a better place? If yes, then join our growing team!

Program Overview

RMI’s Climate Aligned Industries (CAI) program works to decarbonize heavy industry and transport. We collaborate with a global network of businesses, financial institutions, and policymakers to facilitate and scale emissions reductions in these industrial sectors.

The Aviation team within CAI works to accelerate the transition to net-zero air travel through catalyzing production of sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) and developing market infrastructure that enables and scales SAF demand within the aviation value chain.

Position Overview 

RMI is seeking a motivated, enthusiastic, and collaborative professional to join us as a manager in our Aviation team to help maximize growing demand and supply for high-integrity Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF). This position sits within the Climate Aligned Industries team and will report to the Aviation Principal.

The SAF Demand Manager will develop and provide subject matter expertise to enable the success of RMI’s work to catalyze emissions reductions along industrial supply chains through market mechanism design in collaboration with our partners in industry and civil society. This person will actively contribute to:

• RMI’s work in the Sustainable Aviation Buyers Alliance (SABA) to scale investment in SAF certificates (SAFc) – a tool to help speed up SAF deployment with corporate support.
• RMI’s wider work to accelerate the market for high-integrity SAF and decarbonize aviation

Day-to-day, this individual will support and communicate our efforts to scale book and claim systems for SAF in aviation and provide research and analysis support for these efforts. You will also collaborate with other programs within RMI (e.g., other sector teams in the Climate Aligned Industries program, and accounting experts within our Climate Intelligence program) given the cross-cutting application of book and claim systems.

Specific tasks may include:

• Supporting stakeholder engagement with the aviation industry and corporate value chain
• Summarizing and integrating stakeholder feedback and independent research
• Helping coordinate the development of market infrastructure with other RMI teams’ efforts to influence other sectors and use cases

We invite candidates with a variety of skillsets and educational and work backgrounds to apply!

Key Responsibilities

• Support outreach and business development with potential new SABA members
• Support established relationships with existing industry and corporate stakeholders
• Prepare communications and materials for SABA, design meeting content, support event planning, and coordinate activities with program colleagues
• Represent RMI on SABA calls and at events, and be able to speak on the Aviation team’s work, with a goal of expanding the network and cultivate new prospects
• Engage with external experts via meetings, emails, interviews, and conferences
• Create creative problem-solving approaches to drive project insight

• Synthesize complex technical considerations and recommendations into clear and compelling presentations and written reports
• Work collaboratively with RMI’s corporate engagement, program teams and operational teams, such as Communications, Legal, Accounting, and Finance to successfully manage corporate relationships.
• Perform other duties as required or assigned.

Qualifications

Minimum Education & Experience 

• Bachelor’s Degree
• At least 5 years of relevant work experience
• Understanding of emissions accounting methods and climate disclosure frameworks
• Familiarity with energy systems, basics of climate science and decarbonization challenges for aviation and heavy industry
• Experience working with corporations and sustainability teams (preferably with heavy industry & hard-to-abate sectors)
• Experience working in a fast-paced environment
• International experience desired but not required
• Comfort engaging directly with a range of internal and external stakeholders, including non-profit leadership and high