Sustainability Manager (Carbon)

The core of this role is carbon management across the HARP project lifecycle, which likely means owning the whole-life carbon assessment from early concept through construction and handover. You would maintain the carbon models, set and track performance against project KPIs, and turn those numbers into decisions that engineering and design teams can actually use. Embedding carbon, energy and circularity into technical decision-making is really the job, not an add-on to it. Alongside that, you would implement and maintain procedures aligned with PAS 2080 and ISO 50001, keeping the project compliant while improving the underlying energy management system. Expect to produce monthly, quarterly and client-facing carbon and energy reports, maintain registers and dashboards, and run workshops with project teams and supply chain partners. Value engineering, design reviews and option appraisals all fall within your remit because that is where carbon gets designed in or out. Longer term, the role is about building capability rather than just counting emissions. Capturing lessons learned, creating business cases with cost analysis, and representing the sustainability function in client and technical forums suggests STRABAG wants someone who can shift how the project makes decisions, not only how it reports them.

The most obvious gain is deep, practical fluency in whole-life carbon assessment for heavy infrastructure, using the industry software tools that STRABAG's engineering teams rely on. That is a skill set in short supply, and doing it on a live major project is materially different from doing it in a consultancy or a classroom. You would also get hands-on exposure to the governance architecture of carbon management: PAS 2080 implementation and ISO 50001 energy management, plus the reporting rhythms and audit trails that come with client-facing performance data. Working with procurement on low-carbon materials and energy-efficient equipment would build commercial literacy that many sustainability professionals lack. The softer learning may be just as valuable. Influencing senior management to choose carbon reduction options, facilitating workshops with supply chain partners and building business cases with cost analysis are the skills that determine whether a carbon specialist stays technical or moves into strategic leadership. STRABAG's scale, with thousands of projects across Europe, suggests a strong internal market for both paths.

The posting is explicit that this is an engineering-adjacent role, not a pure reporting one. The ideal candidate likely has a degree in sustainability, engineering or a related field, and demonstrable experience delivering whole-life carbon assessments on construction or infrastructure projects using common industry software. A track record of measurable embodied carbon reductions through design optimisation, material selection or construction methodology is the strongest signal you could bring. Beyond technical skill, STRABAG is asking for someone who can influence without authority. Experience persuading senior managers to back carbon reduction options, and a willingness to drive behavioural change across a project, matter as much as the modelling. Membership of, or progress towards, a professional body such as ICE or ISEP, and a relevant CSCS card, are practical prerequisites that suggest site familiarity is expected. Organisationally, the role sits between competing priorities, so the ability to prioritise, negotiate and manage a wide stakeholder map is probably what separates a good candidate from a great one. Experience with PAS 2080 and ISO 50001 procedures, carbon audits and energy performance assessments rounds out the profile STRABAG is likely screening for.

Lead with evidence of delivered reductions, not with responsibilities you held. STRABAG's posting repeatedly returns to measurable outcomes, so bring specific figures: tonnes of embodied carbon avoided, percentage improvements against baseline, and the design or procurement decisions that produced them. Name the software tools you used for whole-life carbon assessment and the project types you applied them to. Because the role is embedded in engineering delivery, your application should read like it was written by someone comfortable in technical reviews. Reference PAS 2080 and ISO 50001 concretely: which procedures you implemented, how compliance was maintained, and where you improved the process rather than just followed it. If you have influenced senior management, describe the situation, the resistance and the outcome briefly; that is a differentiator the posting explicitly values. For interview preparation, expect questions about trade-offs between cost, programme and carbon. Prepare examples where you built a business case or handled a stakeholder who saw sustainability as a constraint. Show curiosity about the HARP project itself and about how a contractor of STRABAG's scale operationalises net-zero commitments across its regional businesses. Mentioning professional body progress and your CSCS status early avoids administrative ambiguity.

This role sits squarely at the environmental and reporting end of ESG, with carbon and energy as the organising themes. The focus is likely on embodied carbon in materials, operational energy during construction, and the circularity of what gets specified and procured. Whole-life carbon assessment on the HARP project means both the upfront carbon of construction and the emissions associated with use and end-of-life, depending on the project's scope. Governance matters too. Implementing PAS 2080 procedures and maintaining ISO 50001 certification are disclosure-adjacent activities: they produce the data and audit trails that support STRABAG's broader sustainability claims and client reporting requirements. The role also touches supply chain engagement, since evaluating low-carbon materials and energy-efficient equipment involves assessing suppliers and their own emissions. That gives the position a scope 3 dimension even if the title does not say so. The social and governance pillars are less prominent here than the environmental one, though stakeholder work with clients and project teams has a governance flavour. For someone whose interest is decarbonisation in the built environment, this is a fairly pure version of the work.

The toughest part is probably influencing technical decisions you do not control. Engineers, designers and procurement teams have cost, programme and safety pressures that often outweigh carbon in the moment, and the role requires persuading senior management to choose reduction options without formal authority over their budgets. That is a recurring friction in contractor-side sustainability positions. A second challenge is data. Whole-life carbon assessments depend on material quantities, supplier data and assumptions that shift as a project progresses, so keeping models current and defensible while also producing monthly and quarterly reports is a genuine workload. Reconciling PAS 2080 requirements with ISO 50001 energy management, and with client-specific reporting expectations, could pull the role in several directions at once. Behavioural change is the third, and arguably hardest, hurdle. The posting asks for someone willing to drive change across the project and supply chain, which implies resistance, inertia and the slow pace of cultural shift in construction. Maintaining momentum without becoming a compliance function that people route around is a real risk for anyone in this seat.

A typical day likely splits between analytical work and conversations. You might spend a morning updating whole-life carbon models, checking quantities against the latest design information and preparing figures for a design review or client report. That work is detailed and quiet, and it feeds directly into the meetings that follow. Much of the rest of the day is collaborative. You could be in a design or value engineering session, flagging where a material substitution or construction methodology would reduce embodied carbon, or meeting procurement colleagues about low-carbon suppliers and energy-efficient equipment. Workshops with project teams and supply chain partners are part of the rhythm, as are the occasional carbon and energy risks and opportunities you need to escalate. Reporting cycles create variability. Around monthly and quarterly reporting deadlines, the balance shifts towards data consolidation, dashboard maintenance and writing performance narratives. Closer to audits or client workshops, it shifts towards governance and preparation. Site visits may feature, given the CSCS requirement and the emphasis on construction-stage decision-making.

The most likely next step from here is a broader sustainability leadership role within STRABAG, either at project director level or across a business unit or region. The company's size, roughly 89,000 people and thousands of locations, means there is internal demand for people who understand both carbon technicalities and how a contractor actually delivers work. That combination is often the bottleneck in sustainability teams, so strong performers can move relatively quickly. Skill-wise, this role builds a portfolio that travels. PAS 2080 and ISO 50001 experience, whole-life carbon modelling and client-facing reporting are transferable across infrastructure clients, consultancies and developers. If you want to deepen the technical side, there is room to specialise in embodied carbon or energy management; if you want breadth, the cross-functional nature of the work can open doors into procurement, design management or ESG strategy. The exposure to business cases and innovation initiatives is worth noting. Creating cost-argued cases for sustainability measures is exactly the kind of experience that supports progression into roles where you own a sustainability budget or a strategy rather than a single project's carbon numbers.

Internally, you would work closely with engineering, design, construction, environmental and project delivery teams, which is where the daily negotiation over carbon happens. Project managers and senior management are also key, since they hold the budget and programme levers and are the audience for your business cases and escalation of risks and opportunities. Procurement colleagues matter because low-carbon materials and energy-efficient equipment get selected through their processes. Externally, clients are a significant stakeholder. The role produces client carbon and energy performance reports and represents sustainability in client workshops, so you would be presenting data and defending methodology to people with their own reporting obligations. Supply chain partners are the other major external group, both in workshops and in the practical work of evaluating suppliers and innovative solutions. The professional and regulatory dimension adds a further set of relationships. Maintaining PAS 2080 and ISO 50001 compliance may involve working with auditors, certification bodies and professional institutions such as ICE or ISEP. Across all of these, the common thread is influencing without direct authority: you are usually persuading people whose primary incentives lie elsewhere.