Head of Sustainability (Places)

Head of Sustainability (Places)

 

Reporting into – Director of Strategy & Planning

Contract – Permanent

Location – Victoria Station House/remote

 

About Us

 

Welcome to Places for London, TfL’s property company, where your career can make a meaningful impact on the landscape of a global city. As an integral part of the London community, we are building more than 20,000 new and sustainable homes over the next 10 years across the capital.

We are one of London’s largest landlords, providing flexible and accessible workspaces for 1,500 customers, over 90 per cent of which are small businesses.

 

We’re creating and curating a legacy that reflects London’s diversity, ambition, and spirit. By transforming underused land into exceptional places, we deliver sustainable living and well-connected communities for generations to come. Our work is rooted in community, driven by purpose, and built for lasting impact. Every home is a step toward a more inclusive, vibrant, and resilient city.

 

About the role

 

We are looking for someone to join us as our Head of Sustainability. Reporting to Mark Farrow, the Director of Strategy & Planning (Places), and take the lead role developing, implementing, and embedding our Sustainability & Inclusivity Strategy across our substantial property portfolio.

 

Your key responsibilities will include:

 

• Implementing and continuously improving Places for London’s Sustainability & Inclusivity Strategy, taking a structured approach to managing performance including scorecards and external performance indicators (including GRESB and Better Building Partnership roadmap). Ensuring alignment with TfL’s Green strategy, roadmap and associated plans, and report progress as needed
• Overseeing the development, implementation and future iteration of the Sustainable Estates Framework on our existing estate, ensuring sustainability is fully integrated in our asset refurbishment and enhancement programmes and delivers high-performing assets with relevant Energy Performance Certificate and BREEAM/ISO 14001 compliance
• Defining and leading carbon reduction activity across Places for London in support of the achievement of the Mayor’s Net Zero ambition and TfL’s science-based targets, and in line with best practice in the built environment sector
• Driving comprehensive understanding of climate risk across the Places for London estate and how it will evolve over time, and ensure it is addressed with a comprehensive series of mitigating measures
• Establishing Places for London as a leader in thinking on and delivery of social value initiatives, working across the business in doing so. Progressively increasing and improving understanding of the social, environmental and economic impact of Places for London’s activities and ensure they are reported broadly
• Acting as a visible and credible sustainability ambassador across Places for London and its partners, TfL and externally including representing the business at industry forums. Developing close working relationships with all Places business units from director down in support of a one-team integrated approach to working
• Leading and developing a high-performing sustainability team augmented by partners as needed, and drive improvements in sustainability capability across the Places for London business, including full integration of sustainability in decision-making processes.

 

About you

 

You will have:

• A proven track record developing and implementing sustainability/climate strategies and programmes in real estate or property-led businesses, including certification, GRESB reporting, carbon accounting, energy and water efficiency initiatives (Essential).
• Strong commercial acumen and a demonstrable ability to balance sustainability goals with financial outcomes, including advising on sustainability in commercial decision making, investments, asset refurbishments and disposals (Essential).
• Strong experience of driving sustainability governance and performance reporting frameworks to senior leadership, investors, and regulators
• Excellent stakeholder engagement skills across multi-functional teams and a proven ability to influence at executive level and drive organisation-wide change (Essential