--- title: Director of Sustainable Products & Data canonical: https://csrjobs.club/jobs/ecco-director-of-sustainable-products-data-cqj5 locale: en description: ECCO is hiring a Director of Sustainable Products & Data on CSR Jobs. Discover this in-house sustainability role and apply today. updated: 2026-10-09 company: ECCO country: Denmark contract: Full time seniority: Senior job_type: Sustainability Manager posted: 2026-10-09 valid_through: 2026-12-09 apply: https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4477690975 source: CSR Jobs --- # Director of Sustainable Products & Data This is the role that turns ECCO's sustainability ambition into measurable business reality. You will own the CSRD reporting programme end to end, lead the annual carbon accounting cycle, and push sustainable materials and product initiatives forward by working through people across a global value chain you do not directly control. ECCO makes leather and shoes itself, from tannery to retail, which means the data behind every claim is both a strategic asset and a regulatory risk. Getting CSRD-grade numbers right, and getting product teams to act on them, is how a Danish family-owned brand keeps its credibility in a market that is scrutinising footwear supply chains more closely every year. This suits someone who has led specialist teams, is genuinely comfortable in reporting frameworks and data structures, and can hold their own in a commercial conversation as easily as a technical one. ## Job FAQs ### What are the main missions and responsibilities of this role? The core mandate is to convert ECCO's sustainability commitments into disclosures, targets and product decisions that hold up under scrutiny. Day to day, that likely means steering the CSRD reporting programme in close partnership with Finance: defining data requirements, chasing the actual numbers out of production, sourcing and retail entities, and building the governance that makes next year's cycle cheaper than this one. Alongside that sits the climate agenda, annual carbon accounting, progress against targets, and the interpretation work that turns a spreadsheet into a business argument. The third pillar is sustainable products and materials. This is less about writing policy and more about influencing design, leather sourcing and LCA workstreams so that environmental performance improves before regulation forces it. The Director leads four specialists spanning climate, materials and LCAs, data, and engagement, so a significant share of the role is prioritisation: deciding what the team does not do this quarter. Longer term, success probably looks like CSRD reporting running as a repeatable process rather than a project, climate performance embedded in business planning, and ECCO's product teams treating environmental data as a normal input rather than a compliance chore. ### Key learning opportunities for this job Few mid-size consumer brands offer the full vertical scope ECCO does. Because the company controls leather production, manufacturing and retail, this role gives unusually direct exposure to primary data: you would learn how a tannery's environmental footprint is actually measured and how LCA methodology behaves when applied to physical products rather than spreadsheets. That is a rare competence in a market full of people who have only worked on abstract reporting. CSRD is still young, and leading a first-wave programme end to end is genuinely formative. Expect deep practical fluency in ESRS datapoints, double materiality, assurance readiness and the architecture of ESG data systems, plus the softer skill of negotiating with Finance over definitions and controls. Working alongside EHS, compliance and sustainable supply chain colleagues also broadens exposure beyond climate into the social and governance side. On the leadership side, developing four specialists with different technical backgrounds, in a matrix where you influence more people than you manage, builds a capability that translates directly into larger sustainability leadership roles elsewhere. ### How does the ideal candidate look like (experience, skills)? The posting is explicit about team leadership, which suggests they want someone who has already managed specialists rather than a strong individual contributor stepping up. Beyond that, the likely profile is several years in sustainability reporting or ESG data roles, with real fluency in CSRD or comparable frameworks and enough carbon accounting knowledge to challenge a calculation rather than just commission it. Stakeholder management is the second filter. ECCO is a global matrix, family-owned and operationally decentralised, so influence is earned through credibility rather than hierarchy. A candidate who can sit with a finance controller, a tannery manager and a product designer in the same week, and adapt the argument each time, is likely to fare well. Commercial awareness matters too, the role is framed around business impact, not compliance alone. Experience in consumer products, apparel or footwear would be a clear advantage given the material and supply chain specifics. Educational background is less visible in the posting, but a mix of environmental science, engineering, economics or data-related training is common in this kind of role. Certifications are not mentioned; demonstrable delivery probably counts for more. ### Advice to stand out and make a successful application The strongest applications will lead with two things: a CSRD or comparable reporting programme you actually delivered, and a team you actually led. Vague references to 'contributing to sustainability strategy' will not survive contact with a role whose first bullet is leading ECCO's reporting programme in partnership with Finance. Quantify the scope, how many entities, how many datapoints, what assurance outcome. Because ECCO makes its own leather and shoes, showing that you understand physical supply chains rather than only reporting layers is a differentiator. If you have worked with LCA data, materials innovation or product-level environmental claims, surface it explicitly. The interview process is likely to test how you would align a decentralised organisation, so prepare one concrete story about convincing a sceptical function to change a process. ECCO states it will consider candidates who do not match every qualification, so do not self-select out on the consumer products preference alone. In the cover letter, connect to the specific tension in this role, regulatory rigour versus commercial usefulness, and show that you have held both at once before. Aligning with ECCO's informal, family-owned culture and its long-horizon mindset is worth a line too. ### What aspects of the company's sustainability is this role likely to focus on? The centre of gravity is reporting and climate. CSRD compliance is called out as a key priority for the coming years, which means the role sits at the intersection of regulatory disclosure and internal data governance, building the processes that let ECCO publish credible ESRS-aligned information without rebuilding everything annually. Carbon accounting and climate performance form the second pillar, covering Scope 1, 2 and most challengingly Scope 3 across leather, manufacturing and retail. Product and materials work is where this role touches ECCO's actual operations. Improving environmental performance in leather and footwear means engaging sourcing, design and production on material choices, durability and lifecycle impacts, and preparing for requirements that are still forming, from green claims rules to product-specific regulation. The LCA and materials specialists in the team suggest this is a technically grounded agenda, not a communications one. Governance is the quieter thread. By working with Finance on controls and data quality, the Director helps move sustainability from a narrative function to one embedded in how the company manages risk and reports to stakeholders, including the family owners. ### What are the main challenges someone in this role might face? The hardest part is probably data. CSRD requires granular, auditable information from operations spread across many countries, and footwear supply chains are notoriously complex, leather is agricultural, manufacturing is energy-intensive and much of the footprint sits upstream. Extracting reliable numbers from entities that have their own priorities, and doing so repeatably, is where most programmes stall. A second challenge is influence without authority. The role leads four specialists but must move Finance, product teams and supply chain partners who do not report to it. In a family-owned company with a long history and strong internal culture, change tends to be consensus-driven, which can be slower than a new Director might expect. Managing that pace while regulatory deadlines do not move is a genuine tension. There is also a prioritisation problem inherent to the brief: CSRD reporting, climate, and sustainable products are each substantial agendas. Keeping all three moving with a small team, in an environment described as having evolving priorities, will require disciplined trade-offs and the confidence to say no. ### How could a typical day look like for someone in this position? There is no fixed shape to this role, which is part of the challenge. Much of the week is likely meeting-based: working sessions with Finance on reporting definitions and controls, check-ins with the four specialists on climate data, LCA work and engagement activities, and conversations with product, sourcing or supply chain colleagues where the objective is persuasion rather than information transfer. Data review is a constant, reading outputs, questioning anomalies, deciding what is good enough to publish. Because ECCO operates globally, some early or late calls across time zones are plausible, though the role is anchored in Bredebro. Expect periods of intense preparation ahead of reporting milestones, balanced by longer stretches of programme building, framework interpretation and process design. Regulatory developments will need monitoring, and translating them into 'what this means for us' briefings for leadership is likely a recurring task. The variability comes from the breadth of the portfolio. One day might be a deep dive on Scope 3 methodology, the next a discussion about material innovation with the product side, the next a governance conversation about who owns a datapoint. Comfort with context-switching is effectively a job requirement. ### What are the opportunities for professional growth and development in this role? The obvious path is within ECCO's Corporate Responsibility & Sustainability function, where this role sits on the leadership team reporting to the VP. Demonstrating that CSRD reporting can be delivered cleanly, and that climate and product agendas produce business results, positions a Director well for broader functional leadership as the agenda grows. The role's visibility with Finance and executive stakeholders is a useful platform. Beyond promotion, the skill portfolio built here is highly portable. CSRD programme leadership is in short supply, and candidates who have run one end to end at a vertically integrated manufacturer are credible for Head of Sustainability or CSO roles at comparable or larger companies. The combination of regulatory fluency, data architecture understanding and team leadership is exactly what recruiters struggle to find. There is also lateral growth inside ECCO. Exposure to product development, supply chain and compliance through this role could open moves into those functions at a senior level, particularly as sustainability becomes embedded in commercial decision-making rather than sitting beside it. ### The main stakeholders you might be interacting with The most important relationship is with Finance. CSRD reporting requires financial-grade data controls, and the posting is explicit that the programme runs in close partnership with that function, meaning controllers, reporting specialists and possibly the CFO's office. Legal, compliance and EHS colleagues within the broader Corporate Responsibility & Sustainability function are close collaborators, as are the sustainable supply chain and product compliance teams. On the product side, the Director engages sourcing, materials, design and manufacturing, where the goal is influencing decisions on leather, components and environmental performance. The four direct reports (specialists in climate, materials and LCAs, data, and engagement) are the operational core, and much of the leadership work is directing and developing them rather than executing personally. The VP, Group Corporate Responsibility & Sustainability is the line manager and key sponsor. Externally, expect auditors and assurance providers, potentially regulators and industry bodies shaping footwear and green claims rules, and possibly NGO or customer-facing stakeholders as ECCO's sustainability claims reach consumers in more than 100 markets. The nature of these interactions ranges from technical verification to reputational management. --- Source: https://csrjobs.club/jobs/ecco-director-of-sustainable-products-data-cqj5