--- title: Lead Principal Sustainability Program Manager, Water Lead canonical: https://csrjobs.club/jobs/oracle-lead-principal-sustainability-program-manager-water-lead-dj5q locale: en description: Oracle is hiring a Lead Principal Sustainability Program Manager, Water Lead on CSR Jobs. Discover this in-house sustainability role and apply today. updated: 2026-10-03 company: Oracle country: United States contract: Full time seniority: Senior missions: Corporate Carbon Footprint, ESG reporting, Stakeholders engagement job_type: Sustainability Manager, ESG/Sustainability Reporting Manager posted: 2026-10-03 valid_through: 2026-12-03 apply: https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4473423052 source: CSR Jobs --- # Lead Principal Sustainability Program Manager, Water Lead You'll own Oracle's corporate water strategy end to end: the risk assessments, conservation and replenishment targets, the metrics, and the reporting that sits behind them. Expect to move between global frameworks and the operational realities of individual sites while keeping the numbers audit-ready. Water is the pressure point in Oracle's AI-driven cloud buildout. Data centers are thirsty, and **regulators, customers and communities are all asking harder questions** about how that demand is met. This role decides what Oracle promises, proves it, and brings others along, a rare chance to shape water stewardship at genuine hyperscale. This suits someone who… has run corporate water stewardship programmes inside a large, complex organisation, is fluent in CSRD/CDP-style disclosure, and can drive execution without waiting for perfect clarity. ## Job FAQs ### What are the main missions and responsibilities of this role? The core mandate is to own Oracle's corporate water agenda end to end. That means setting the strategy for water risk, conservation and stewardship, then translating it into targets, metrics and reporting that hold up to scrutiny. Day to day you would likely be refining how water data is collected and governed across data centre sites, chasing down quality issues before they reach a public disclosure, and assessing where the business is most exposed to water stress. Beyond the numbers, a substantial part of the role is **driving external water stewardship and replenishment partnerships**. You would be scouting and project-managing collaborations in the catchments where Oracle operates, which is as much relationship work as analytical work. There is also a readiness dimension: preparing the organisation for evolving voluntary and regulatory frameworks such as CDP, CSRD/ESRS and GRI so that disclosure becomes a routine output rather than a fire drill. Finally, the posting is explicit that the remit flexes, 'other duties as assigned' suggests the Global Sustainability Office sees this person as a versatile operator who can pick up adjacent environmental topics. Over time the role could well expand into **biodiversity** or broader nature work, given that appears among the preferred skills. ### Key learning opportunities for this job The obvious gain is depth in corporate water stewardship at a scale few companies can offer. Managing water risk, replenishment and conservation across a global data centre footprint would give you genuine, defensible expertise that translates directly into the wider nature and water agenda. You would also build fluency in the reporting standards that now define the field (CSRD/ESRS, CDP, GRI, GHGP and TCFD) and learn what 'audit-ready' actually means in practice rather than in theory. Less obvious but valuable is the exposure to enterprise sustainability tooling. The preferred list names EPM, Watershed, Aqueduct, Waterplan, Workiva and SAP Sustainability Control Tower, so you could expect hands-on time with **data platforms that most sustainability professionals only read about**. Working inside a company that sells cloud and ERP software means you may also see these tools being built, not just used, which is a distinctive vantage point for anyone interested in the technology side of ESG. Finally, the role sits in a small central office with executive visibility, so you would likely absorb the craft of influencing senior leadership, framing a water case in financial and risk terms, surviving ambiguity, and running change in a business where sustainability is not the primary revenue driver. ### How does the ideal candidate look like (experience, skills)? The non-negotiables are programme management depth and demonstrable corporate water expertise. Oracle will be looking for someone who has actually run water efficiency, risk or replenishment programmes, not a generalist who has read about water as part of a broader ESG remit. Evidence of translating a global water strategy into local site-level priorities would be the closest thing to a knockout criterion, since that is precisely the gap this hire is meant to close. On credentials, a background in data centre sustainability or operations stands out immediately, because Oracle's water exposure is concentrated in its cloud infrastructure. Familiarity with enterprise sustainability software and a working command of CSRD/ESRS, CDP and GRI reporting gives you the second pillar: not just doing the water work but being able to **defend the numbers through disclosure and assurance**. Softer requirements matter more than usual here. The brief emphasises comfort with ambiguity and 'flexing into unfamiliar domains', which signals a lean team where the job description will age quickly. Strong communication credentials, up to executive and board-adjacent level, plus the credibility to face customers and community stakeholders are effectively selection criteria, not nice-to-haves. ### Advice to stand out and make a successful application Lead with water. Oracle has written a water-specific brief but a sustainability-flavoured title, so plenty of applicants will submit generalist ESG resumes. Yours should make water the spine of the document: risk assessments you have run, conservation or replenishment projects you have delivered, targets you have set and met, and the metrics you have defended through assurance. Quantify wherever possible, litres, percentages, catchment areas, cost avoided. Because the role spans strategy and disclosure, build a second narrative thread around reporting integrity. If you have prepared CSRD/ESRS, CDP or GRI submissions, describe your specific contribution and the governance machinery behind it, not just the framework names. Any exposure to data centre or other high-water industrial operations should be surfaced early, since the posting flags it as a plus and it is uncommon. In interviews, prepare for the ambiguity question in its harder form: examples where you framed a problem in a domain you did not own and drove it to execution. It would also be shrewd to reference Oracle's own sustainability reporting and public water disclosures, and to have a view on where data centre water use is heading, showing you understand the business context, not just the function. Given a salary band that reaches well past $260,000, expect the process to probe seniority and independent judgement rather than task-level skills. ### What aspects of the company's sustainability is this role likely to focus on? This role sits squarely on the environmental 'E', specifically water, with a strong governance overlay. Oracle's sustainability story is increasingly dominated by the resource footprint of AI infrastructure, and water is the most visible and contested part of that. The focus would likely be on water risk assessment across data centre locations, conservation and efficiency targets, and replenishment projects in stressed catchments where the company operates. A second strand is **disclosure and data governance**. The role exists in part because reporting requirements are tightening, so you would be shaping how water metrics flow into CDP, ESRS/CSRD and other frameworks with the integrity and auditability that regulators and investors increasingly expect. That also means engaging the customer-facing side of the business: enterprise buyers now ask suppliers for water and environmental data, so this work has commercial weight. Longer term, the brief hints at an expanding nature agenda. Biodiversity appears among the preferred skills, and the 'other duties as assigned' clause suggests the water lead could become a broader environmental programme owner, weaving water into a wider stewardship position that covers replenishment, community engagement and possibly nature-related targets. ### What are the main challenges someone in this role might face? The hardest part may simply be scale and fragmentation. Oracle operates a vast, distributed estate, and water data typically lives with site operations, facilities teams and third-party providers rather than in one clean system. Getting consistent, assured numbers out of that environment is a governance problem as much as a technical one, and it will test patience and influence far more than analytical skill. Ambiguity is the second challenge, and the posting names it directly. A lean central sustainability office inside a company whose primary identity is AI and cloud means resources are finite and priorities shift. You could find yourself owning a high-stakes agenda without a large team, dependent on colleagues for whom water is a side responsibility. The ability to **make progress without formal authority** is likely to matter more than any framework expertise. The third tension is commercial. Data centre growth is Oracle's strategic engine, and water stewardship can read as a constraint on it. Balancing credible environmental ambition against expansion plans, and being honest about trade-offs internally, is the kind of challenge that defines whether this role succeeds or stalls. ### How could a typical day look like for someone in this position? A typical day would probably start with data. You might review water metrics coming in from sites or vendors, reconcile discrepancies, and prepare material for an internal review or an upcoming disclosure cycle. Spreadsheets, dashboards and enterprise tools such as EPM or a water platform would feature heavily, alongside the less glamorous work of chasing colleagues for inputs so numbers are complete and defensible. Much of the middle of the day is coordination. You could be in a working session with facilities or data centre operations to understand a local water issue, on a call with a replenishment partner or NGO about a project in a specific catchment, or briefing a legal or finance stakeholder on how a target is tracking. Occasional customer conversations are plausible too, since the brief mentions interfacing externally on environmental topics. There is meaningful variability. During reporting season or ahead of a target-setting milestone the rhythm intensifies towards drafting, review and assurance. In quieter periods the emphasis shifts to strategy, assessing water risk, scoping new stewardship projects, or building the case for expanding the programme into adjacent areas. ### What are the opportunities for professional growth and development in this role? The clearest path is deepening into a recognised corporate water and nature authority. Few roles offer the sheer breadth of a hyperscale data centre footprint, and doing this well builds a portfolio (targets set, replenishment delivered, disclosures assured) that is portable to any large water-intensive business. Within Oracle, success could plausibly lead to a broader environmental remit covering biodiversity and nature, given the hints in the preferred skills. Because the Global Sustainability Office is central and small, visibility to senior leadership is built in. That is a double-edged advantage: high exposure means high scrutiny, but also a fast route to **influence over company-wide strategy** rather than a narrow functional niche. Lateral moves into operations, ESG reporting, or sustainability roles tied to Oracle's own products are not implausible for someone who performs well. On skills, the combination this role develops (water expertise, reporting-standard fluency and enterprise software literacy) is unusually well-rounded. That triangulation is what makes candidates marketable for director-level sustainability positions, and increasingly for roles at the intersection of ESG and technology. ### The main stakeholders you might be interacting with Internally, the closest working relationships would be within Oracle's Global Sustainability Office itself, alongside the data centre and cloud operations teams who hold the site-level water data and run the facilities. Finance, legal and reporting colleagues become critical partners during disclosure cycles, since they own assurance and controls. Expect regular interaction with executives, because the role's stated scope includes influencing leadership and framing water as a business risk. Externally, the stakeholder map is broad. The brief calls out external partners for water stewardship and replenishment work (likely NGOs, catchment bodies, utilities and project developers) as well as customers, communities and regulators who want assurance that Oracle's environmental claims hold. Those relationships are less about reporting and more about credibility and collaboration on the ground. There is also a supplier and vendor dimension. Water data and efficiency projects often depend on third parties, from facilities contractors to sustainability software providers, so a degree of commercial and contractual engagement is likely. The common thread across all these groups is that the role sits between strategy and operations, translating between them constantly. --- Source: https://csrjobs.club/jobs/oracle-lead-principal-sustainability-program-manager-water-lead-dj5q