Overview

We’re looking for a driven and ambitious Undergraduate Food Sustainability Policy Co-ordinator to join us in Manchester on a 12-month work placement. You’ll gain hands-on experience supporting a range of activities that help shape Co-op’s approach to ethical sourcing, sustainability, and food policy. Working with colleagues from across the business, you’ll develop new skills, build your network, and gain practical experience in areas including sustainability projects, supplier engagement, data analysis and responsible sourcing.

As the UK’s largest convenience retailer, we’re committed to providing high-quality, ethical products at great prices for our millions of customers and members nationwide. In this role, you’ll support activities that help deliver our Future of Food commitments, working with colleagues across Co-op and our supply chains to drive positive change. You’ll have the opportunity to make a real difference across our Co-op Own Brand food and drink supply chains, while building your knowledge of sustainability in a major food retailer.

What you’ll do

  • Co-ordinate projects focused on improving transparency across our Co-op supply chains and supporting our Future of Food commitments
  • Maintain project plans, actions and milestones, helping to keep activities on track and monitor key commitments
  • Build relationships with colleagues, suppliers and other partners, developing your stakeholder management and influencing skills
  • Support the wider Food Sustainability team with project co-ordination, data analysis, reporting and turning information into useful insights
  • Support sustainability communications, colleague engagement and internal campaigns, such as World Water Day and Fairtrade Fortnight, including helping with copywriting and content creation
  • Work with our suppliers to support Co-op’s wider ethical sourcing, sustainability and climate commitments, including our decarbonisation objectives
  • Research emerging sustainability, ethical sourcing and food policy topics, keeping up to date with regulation and government, NGO and industry trends
  • Prepare presentations, reports and recommendations, and support meetings and working groups to share progress, insights and outcomes

What you’ll bring

  • Knowledge gained from your second year of an undergraduate degree in International Development, Sustainability, Geography, Human Rights and Social Ethics, Climate and the Environment, or a related subject
  • A good understanding of the current challenges in global food supply chains
  • Good communication and relationship-building skills
  • A passion for ethics and sustainability, and a genuine interest in caring for the planet we share and the people who create our products
  • Good analytical and problem-solving skills, with a working knowledge of Microsoft Office applications such as Excel and PowerPoint

We’re actively building diverse teams and we welcome applications from everyone. If you have a disability, we can make reasonable adjustments to our recruitment process according to your needs. We’re also part of the Disability Confident scheme, meaning we’ll always offer an interview to disabled candidates who apply through the scheme if they meet the minimum criteria for a job. 

Please note that we may close applications for this role early.

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