--- title: Sustainability Manager canonical: https://csrjobs.club/jobs/kronospan-sustainability-manager-h5az locale: en description: Kronospan is hiring a Sustainability Manager on CSR Jobs. Discover this in-house sustainability role and apply today. updated: 2026-10-20 company: Kronospan country: Latvia contract: Full time seniority: Mid-level missions: ESG reporting, Employee engagement, Stakeholders engagement job_type: Sustainability Manager posted: 2026-10-20 valid_through: 2026-11-19 apply: https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4480446680 source: CSR Jobs --- # Sustainability Manager This role puts one person in charge of environmental, social and governance work at Kronospan's Latvian wood panel operation. You would write the local ESG policies and procedures, keep the compliance documents in order, collect and check the data behind disclosures, and coordinate with the group sustainability team so the site's figures fit the wider picture. A large part of the value sits in two places. The first is reporting that stands up to audit and group scrutiny, in an industry where fibre sourcing, energy, emissions and formaldehyde are watched closely. The second is the customer side: sales teams need credible sustainability answers for tenders and client requests, and someone has to supply them. This suits someone who is organised enough to run a reporting cycle alone, fluent in both Latvian and English, and willing to spend time on a factory floor gathering numbers from people who are not sustainability specialists. Experience with ISO 14001 or ISO 45001 helps. The site is early in its ESG work, so there is room to set up processes rather than inherit them. ## Job FAQs ### What are the main missions and responsibilities of this role? The core mission is to build and run ESG at Kronospan's Latvian operation while feeding into the group's overall sustainability strategy. Day to day, this means developing policies and procedures tailored to wood-based panel manufacturing, and maintaining the documentation that supports them, including compliance reports and internal evidence files. ESG reporting is a central duty. The person will collect and verify environmental, social, and governance data, prepare internal and external reports, and work with the global sustainability team to keep local figures consistent with group-level disclosures. Competition analysis and benchmarking within the woodworking industry also form part of the strategic work. Beyond reporting, the role has an engagement dimension: educating employees and encouraging their participation in sustainability initiatives. A further responsibility is supporting sales teams, answering customer requests for sustainability information and communicating with external stakeholders such as clients and auditors. The role is hands-on in a single location but connected to a wider international network, so balancing local execution with group alignment is part of the job. ### Key learning opportunities for this job This role offers broad exposure across the ESG field in an industrial setting. Because the responsibilities include strategy development, reporting, documentation, and employee engagement, the person will likely build practical knowledge of how ESG frameworks apply to a manufacturing operation, from data collection at plant level to group-level reporting. Working with Kronospan's global sustainability team gives access to a network of specialists across more than 28 countries. That means exposure to how different sites handle the same problems, plus mentoring from colleagues who have run reporting cycles before. If the site uses ISO 14001 and ISO 45001, participation in audits and management reviews would deepen environmental and occupational health and safety knowledge. The customer-facing element is a distinct learning area. Supporting sales teams with sustainability information teaches how ESG data is used in tenders and client requirements, and how competition benchmarking works in the wood products sector. A candidate could also gain experience in CSRD or similar reporting requirements as these evolve for the industry. The early implementation phase likely means the person shapes processes rather than just following them. ### How does the ideal candidate look like (experience, skills)? The posting asks for a bachelor's degree in environmental science, sustainability, business administration, or a related field, plus proven ESG or CSR experience, ideally in manufacturing or woodworking. The manufacturing preference is meaningful: panel production involves complex environmental data, and a candidate who has already collected emissions, energy, and waste figures from a factory floor will adapt faster than one from a purely advisory background. Fluent English and Latvian are firm requirements, which points to a person who can work with group functions abroad while handling local regulators, employees, and customers in Latvian. Strong rigor in reporting and documentation is stated directly, so attention to detail and consistency matter more than presentation skills. Experience with ISO 14001 and ISO 45001 is listed as an advantage, and those certifications suggest the candidate should be comfortable with audits and evidence files. The soft skills implied are independence and cross-functional collaboration. Someone who can run ESG work alone at a site but also sit with production, sales, and HR to gather information would fit the described setup. Familiarity with customer sustainability questionnaires and competition analysis would be a plus, since the role supports the sales team. ### Advice to stand out and make a successful application This is a single-site role within a large group, and Kronospan's Latvian operation is production-focused, so your application should link ESG work to manufacturing realities. Quantify your reporting experience: which frameworks you have used (CSRD, GRI, ISO 14001), how many reporting cycles you have run, and what data you collected from operations. Naming specific panel production impacts such as wood sourcing, formaldehyde emissions, resin use, energy, and waste shows you understand the context. The role explicitly supports sales teams with customer sustainability information, so show that you can translate ESG data into commercial answers. Describe a time you responded to a customer questionnaire, tender requirement, or EPD request. If you have worked with ISO 14001 or ISO 45001, put the certification scope and your role in the audit process near the top of your CV. Since the position requires fluent English and Latvian, write your cover letter in either language but keep the terminology consistent. Prepare for interview questions about how you would set priorities in the first year, how you would engage shop-floor employees on sustainability, and how you would handle a customer asking for carbon footprint data you do not yet have. Concrete answers about data gaps and internal coordination will stand out. ### What aspects of the company's sustainability is this role likely to focus on? The role is anchored in the environmental side of ESG, given the woodworking context. Wood-based panel production touches on responsible fibre sourcing, energy use in drying and pressing, emissions control, resin and formaldehyde management, water, and waste. The ESG strategy this person develops would likely address these material topics directly, together with the documentation needed to prove performance. Reporting is where much of the sustainability focus will land. Kronospan as a group faces growing disclosure expectations under European rules, and the Latvian site will supply data upward. The person could spend significant effort on ensuring figures for energy, emissions, and resource use are accurate and traceable. Experience with ISO 14001 and ISO 45001 would connect this to certified environmental and safety management systems, and to ISO 50001 if energy management is in scope. The social and governance dimensions appear through employee engagement and the customer-facing work. Supporting sales with sustainability information ties the site to client expectations, which in furniture, construction, and interior design increasingly include carbon footprint and sourcing claims. Governance shows up in policy upkeep, compliance records, and audit readiness. ### What are the main challenges someone in this role might face? The largest challenge is likely data. At a production site, ESG figures live in many systems and with many people: energy consumption, emissions, waste volumes, sourcing records, safety incidents. Pulling reliable numbers on a schedule requires cooperation and persistence, and the person will probably spend significant time chasing, checking, and correcting data before it can be reported. A second challenge is balancing local urgency with group alignment. The global sustainability team sets direction and deadlines, but the Riga site has its own operational pressures and may be early in its ESG journey. Translating a group strategy into something relevant to a panel plant, and keeping momentum when production priorities take over, demands patience and clear internal communication. Employee engagement is another difficulty. Sustainability initiatives at a manufacturing site depend on people in production roles changing habits, and that is harder than drafting a policy. The role also carries a customer-facing dimension, where the sales team may need information quickly and without warning. Managing those unpredictable requests alongside planning and reporting cycles requires good organization. ### How could a typical day look like for someone in this position? A typical day is likely split between data work, coordination, and communication. Much of the morning might go to ESG reporting tasks: updating spreadsheets or systems, checking figures with production or maintenance colleagues, and preparing sections of a report or policy document. Because manufacturing data changes with output, verification is a recurring activity rather than a one-off. Meetings fill a large part of the calendar. There could be calls with the global sustainability team to align on strategy, reporting formats, or deadlines, and internal sessions with site management on priorities. Interactions with the sales team tend to be short and demand-driven, for example helping answer a customer questionnaire or preparing a sustainability statement for a tender. Employee engagement adds a different rhythm. Some days involve preparing training material, running a session, or following up on an initiative with shop-floor staff. External contact, such as an auditor, a customer, or a consultant, appears periodically. The mix varies with the reporting cycle: quiet periods allow more time for strategy and engagement, while deadlines bring concentrated data and writing work. ### What are the opportunities for professional growth and development in this role? Kronospan operates more than 40 production sites across 28 countries, and this role sits in one plant's management environment while contributing to a global sustainability strategy. That structure creates a visible path: strong performance in ESG reporting and customer support can lead to regional or group-level sustainability positions, or to broader compliance and environment, health, and safety roles. Because the role spans reporting, documentation, employee engagement, and sales support, it builds a wide profile rather than a narrow one. A candidate could move toward a specialist function such as CSRD reporting, product sustainability, or EHS management, or toward a site leadership role where environment and safety are part of the operational remit. The autonomy of working independently within a large group gives room to propose new processes and own them. Growth depends largely on the group's reporting obligations. As CSRD and customer carbon requirements expand in the wood products sector, the person who builds clean data systems and reliable documentation early is well placed for higher-scope roles. ### The main stakeholders you might be interacting with Internally, the closest relationships are with the global sustainability team, which sets overall strategy and reporting frameworks, and with the local site management at the Riga operation. The role reports into that local structure while contributing to group priorities, so the person balances two lines of expectation. Production, maintenance, and EHS colleagues are key data providers, since most environmental figures originate on the shop floor. The sales team is a stated stakeholder. The role supports customer responses on sustainability, which means regular exchange with sales staff and, indirectly, with clients asking for environmental data, certifications, or carbon information. HR and communications colleagues are likely partners for employee engagement and training activities. Externally, the person could interact with auditors and certification bodies connected to ISO 14001 and ISO 45001, with regulators on local environmental requirements in Latvia, and with industry or group partners on benchmarking. Customer sustainability contacts and possibly suppliers of wood fibre also feature, especially if due diligence or chain-of-custody questions arise. --- Source: https://csrjobs.club/jobs/kronospan-sustainability-manager-h5az