--- title: Environmental & Sustainability Officer canonical: https://csrjobs.club/jobs/hilton-foods-seachill-environmental-sustainability-officer-q3c6 locale: en description: Hilton Foods Seachill is hiring a Environmental & Sustainability Officer on CSR Jobs. Discover this in-house sustainability role and apply today. updated: 2026-10-27 company: Hilton Foods Seachill country: United Kingdom contract: Full time seniority: Mid-level missions: Compliance, ESG reporting, Corporate Carbon Footprint, Employee engagement job_type: QEHS/EHS Manager, Sustainability Manager posted: 2026-10-27 valid_through: 2026-11-26 apply: https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4481871466 source: CSR Jobs --- # Environmental & Sustainability Officer This role gives one person ownership of environmental compliance and sustainability performance across two seafood manufacturing sites in Grimsby. You will hold the environmental permits and discharge consents, run the ISO 14001 and ISO 50001 management systems, host inspections, and act as the day to day contact for the Environment Agency and Group sustainability teams. The sustainability angle is operational rather than report writing. Seafood processing is water and energy intensive, so the reductions in water use, waste, food waste and carbon sit directly where the environmental impact is created. What you deliver here is measurable on the factory floor and feeds back into Hilton Foods Group targets, which makes the post a rare mix of hands on site work and group level visibility. This suits someone who can read a permit, run an internal audit and then persuade a production shift manager to change a routine. You will need to be comfortable working independently across two nearby sites, translating legislation into practical actions that busy operational teams will actually follow. ## Job FAQs ### What are the main missions and responsibilities of this role? The core of the job is keeping two Grimsby seafood sites compliant with environmental legislation. That means managing environmental permits and discharge consents, hosting inspections and audits, and being the named point of contact for the Environment Agency and other regulators. Alongside this you run the **ISO 14001 environmental and ISO 50001 energy management systems**, including the internal audit programme, so the certification status of both sites stays intact. The second half of the role is improvement. You will drive reductions in waste, water use, energy and carbon emissions, lead on cutting food waste and support valorisation routes, and find ways to make trade processes more water efficient. Accurate environmental data and progress reporting go to site management, Group teams and external stakeholders, so the numbers have to hold up. There is also a clear engagement strand. You train and advise colleagues in production, engineering and technical teams, coordinate with Health & Safety on shared risks, and help embed procedures that make environmental compliance routine rather than a periodic scramble. ### Key learning opportunities for this job The exposure to **ISO 14001 and ISO 50001 in a live manufacturing setting** is the main development asset here. Running internal audits, supporting external certification assessments and managing regulator relationships build a skill set that transfers across food, pharma and heavy industry. If you do not already hold auditor training, this post gives you the practical evidence to pursue it. Because Hilton Foods operates a group structure with energy and sustainability workstreams, you would also see how a multinational translates strategy into site level actions. That is useful experience if you later want a group role. Water and energy efficiency in seafood processing is technically specific, so you would gain working knowledge of effluent treatment, refrigeration loads, trade effluent consents and food waste valorisation. The stakeholder side matters too. Influencing production managers who do not report to you, and presenting data to senior leaders, are skills that develop quickly in a role with this much cross functional contact. ### How does the ideal candidate look like (experience, skills)? The posting is open to an experienced or developing professional, which suggests the company will calibrate the level to the candidate. A realistic profile is two to five years in an environmental, sustainability or compliance role, ideally in a large or multi-site organisation, with food manufacturing as a strong plus. You need working knowledge of UK environmental legislation, licensing and consent applications, because those are named explicitly as requirements. Hands on experience with **ISO 14001 and ISO 50001** is close to essential, along with internal auditing and support for external assessments. Data analysis and environmental reporting skills matter, since you will be producing figures for site management and Group. A degree or equivalent qualification in environmental science, sustainability, environmental or energy management is expected, and IEMA membership plus ISO auditor training would strengthen an application. The soft skills are stated plainly: confident with regulators and auditors, able to influence colleagues outside your reporting line, and comfortable working independently. A full driving licence is required because the two sites sit a mile apart, and national travel is part of the job. ### Advice to stand out and make a successful application Lead your CV with compliance and management system evidence rather than sustainability statements. Name the permits, consents or licences you have managed, the audits you have hosted, and the certification bodies you have dealt with. If you have run ISO 14001 or ISO 50001 internally, say what the audit programme looked like and what non conformities you closed out. Quantify reductions in water, energy or waste with a baseline and a timeframe, because this role is judged on measurable action. For the cover letter, connect to the specifics: two seafood manufacturing sites, trade effluent and water intensity, food waste valorisation, and the link between site delivery and Hilton Foods Group strategy. The company describes itself through collaboration, responsibility and agility, so a short example of persuading a production team to change a process will land better than a list of values. Interview preparation should include UK environmental legislation basics, the Environment Agency permitting regime, and how you would handle a regulator inspection at short notice. Be ready to explain how you would influence a shift manager who sees compliance as someone else's job. If you hold IEMA membership or auditor training, mention it, but do not overstate it: the posting treats both as advantageous rather than required. ### What aspects of the company's sustainability is this role likely to focus on? The focus is operational environmental performance at site level, not corporate reporting. Seafood processing uses significant volumes of water for washing, chilling and cleaning, so **water reduction and trade effluent management** are likely central, alongside energy use from refrigeration and carbon emissions tied to it. Waste and food waste reduction, including valorisation routes for by-products, is called out as a leadership area. The role also carries the compliance and governance side: environmental permits, discharge consents, ISO 14001 and ISO 50001 certification, and data that feeds Hilton Foods Group reporting. You would be the bridge between group level ESG and carbon reduction targets and what actually happens on two Grimsby sites, which means the social and governance dimensions show up mainly through regulator relationships, colleague training and accurate disclosure. ### What are the main challenges someone in this role might face? The hardest part is likely influence without authority. You will be asking production, engineering and technical teams to change routines during shifts where throughput and yield are the priority, and environmental improvements often compete with those pressures. The posting says you must influence colleagues who do not report to you, which signals this is a known tension rather than a hypothetical one. Running two sites a mile apart adds a practical load: split days, duplicated audits and the risk of being present where the problem is not. Regulator contact brings its own pressure, since permit breaches or consent exceedances can escalate quickly in food manufacturing with high water discharge. Keeping ISO 14001 and ISO 50001 systems audit ready while also chasing reduction projects means balancing maintenance work against improvement work. Finally, the role spans strategy translation and hands on data collection. Candidates who prefer one over the other may find the mix demanding. ### How could a typical day look like for someone in this position? No two days look alike, but a common pattern would start with data: checking energy, water and waste figures, updating the environmental management system, and flagging anomalies before they become compliance issues. You might then walk one of the sites with engineering or production colleagues to look at a specific water or waste problem, or sit with technical teams on effluent sampling and trade effluent results. Meetings fill a good share of the week: internal audit sessions, Health & Safety coordination, project reviews on carbon or waste reduction, and regular contact with Group energy and sustainability teams. Regulator correspondence, permit administration and preparation for external assessments are recurring tasks, and audit or inspection days would dominate entirely when they fall. Because the two sites are close, you could spend the morning at one and the afternoon at the other. Training production colleagues on procedures, and writing up guidance that operational teams can follow, is a regular part of the rhythm. ### What are the opportunities for professional growth and development in this role? The most obvious path is deepening into a group level environmental or energy role. The posting explicitly says you will be the main contact for Group energy and sustainability teams and will take part in wider Hilton Foods workstreams, which gives visibility beyond the two Grimsby sites. Internal promotion is mentioned in the benefits, and Hilton Foods operates 21 facilities across multiple markets, so lateral moves into other sites or countries are structurally possible. Skill growth comes from certification ownership. Full responsibility for ISO 14001 and ISO 50001, plus external audit and regulator contact, builds a portfolio that supports senior environmental manager or compliance manager roles elsewhere. If carbon reduction becomes a larger part of the agenda, you could specialise in decarbonisation or energy management. Within the site, success in this role tends to lead to broader responsibility for ESG data and reporting, since the company mentions supporting ESG initiatives as a desirable experience. ### The main stakeholders you might be interacting with Internally, the closest working relationships are with site management, who receive your environmental data and progress reports, and with production, engineering and technical teams, who carry out the operational changes you propose. Health & Safety colleagues are named as partners on shared risks and controls, so that interface is regular. You also act as the site link to Hilton Foods Group energy and sustainability teams, which means reporting upward and aligning local actions with group strategy. Externally, the Environment Agency and other regulatory bodies are central stakeholders, along with auditors and certification bodies for ISO 14001 and ISO 50001. Contractors working on site fall within your remit too, since compliance depends on how they work. The nature of these interactions varies: some are formal, such as inspections and audits, others are advisory and persuasive, particularly with colleagues who do not report to you. --- Source: https://csrjobs.club/jobs/hilton-foods-seachill-environmental-sustainability-officer-q3c6