Maritime Environment Policy Advisor

We are recruiting for a Senior Policy Advisor to join the Maritime Environment and Decarbonisation division within the Maritime Directorate. The division is responsible for reducing the environmental impacts of the maritime sector and helping to deliver a greener transport system. This role focuses on the contribution of the maritime sector to environmental policy outside of decarbonisation, such as air quality and biodiversity.

The role encompasses both domestic and international policy, working on policies that range from those at an early stage of development through to building on recent progress made on international policy. The role will involve attending and participating in international negotiations as part of the UK delegation to the International Maritime Organization, developing and delivering domestic environmental policy and stakeholder engagement both within HMG, to ensure a strategic approach to environment policy, and externally, to ensure buy-in from the maritime sector itself. This is a high-profile post with a lot of opportunity to make a difference to the future of environmental policy in the maritime sector.

Responsibilities

Key accountabilities of the role include:

• Lead negotiations on emission control areas and air quality impacts of international shipping at the International Maritime Organization, working closely with colleagues in DfT, the Marine and Coastguard Agency (MCA), across government departments, and internationally to reach high environmental outcomes.
• Build close relationships with DfT’s central environment team and technical experts in the MCA to develop close involvement and technical understanding on the range of existing maritime environment work.
• Champion environmental considerations across the directorate, working with maritime colleagues in DfT and the MCA, to ensure that environmental impacts beyond decarbonisation are included in developing policies and investment decisions.
• Develop relationships with a range of stakeholders, to better understand the impact of emerging environmental policies on maritime operations, as well as ensuring a broad range of input into policy development.
• Work closely with analysts across DfT to progress work to fill evidence gaps on the non-GHG impact of future fuels and energy choices for the maritime sector, to inform future policy development and future business cases/investment decisions.
• Support wider areas of the environment and decarbonisation portfolio of work as necessary.

For an in-depth insight into the role please refer to the Role Profile.

To be successful in this role, you will have excellent organisation skills which you will use to help prioritise your workload. You are enthusiastic and proactive. You are a strategic thinker who can recognise when to step back at look at high level strategic outcomes. You have strong communication skills which you will use to negotiate and influence diverse stakeholders including senior civil servants and Ministers, and international stakeholders. You are comfortable working with a degree of ambiguity and have the ability to be adaptable to achieve strategic objectives.

Find out more about working within policy at the Department for Transport: https://careers.dft.gov.uk/policy/

Additional Information

A minimum 60% of your working time should be spent at your principal workplace, although requirements to attend other locations for official business, or carry out detached duty in another DfT workplace, will also count towards this level of attendance. 

Occasional travel to other DfT offices will be required. 

It is expected that the role holder will need to travel to London to attend relevant in-person sessions at the International Maritime Organization, for periods of around one week. These are likely to take place at least twice a year. There may also be some necessary international travel to attend in-person events on the environmental impacts of shipping, which will be on an ad-hoc basis.

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Delivering at Pace
• Leadership
• Seeing the Big Picture
• Working Together