Programme Officer for Industrial Pollution Programme – Centre for Science and Environment (CSE)

Application Deadline: Jan. 20th, 2022.

The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) is a public interest research and advocacy organisation based in New Delhi. CSE researches into, lobbies for and communicates the urgency of development that is both sustainable and equitable.

The scenario today demands using knowledge to bring about change. In other words, working India’s democracy. This is what we aim to do.The challenge, we see, is two-pronged. On the one hand, millions live within a biomass based subsistence economy, at the margins of survival.

The environment is their only natural asset. But a degraded environment means stress on land, water and forest resources for survival. It means increasing destitution and poverty. Here, opportunity to bring about change is enormous.But it will need a commitment to reform – structural reform- in the way we do business with local communities.

On the other hand, rapid industrialization is throwing up new problems: growing toxification and a costly disease burden. The answers will be in reinventing the growth model of the Western world for ourselves, so that we can leapfrog technology choices and find new ways of building wealth that will not cost us the earth.

Our aim is to raise these concerns, participate in seeking answers and in pushing for answers, transforming these into policy and so practice. We do this through our research and by communicating our understanding through our publications.

We call this knowledge-based activism. We hope we will make a difference.

Background: 

The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), India’s leading public policy research institution is looking to expand its work on minimising industrial pollution. The industrial pollution programme of CSE is working to reduce the environmental footprint of power plants, heavy industries and SMEs. The team works on preparing roadmaps for reducing emissions, improving compliance, and increasing circularity for various industrial sectors in India and around the globe. Strengthening environmental governance is another domain this unit works on actively. As work expands in the unit, CSE is looking for a Programme Officer to work in the Industrial Pollution Programme.

Job Profile:

The person will be a part of a young and enthusiastic team of researchers and experts passionate about improving the industrial sector environmentally. The work profile would include aiding regulators at state and central level in developing roadmaps for air pollution hotspots and air polluting industrial sectors indifferent states of India and countries around the world. The profile would also include work related to material circularity including resource recovery in processes of various industrial sectors and from the industrial waste (hazardous/non-hazardous waste) generated by industries. As a part of the industrial pollution division, he/she would also be involved in preparing roadmaps for GHG emissions from industrial sectors and would also be involved in various aspects of environmental governance including work on areas like environmental impact assessment.

He/she will need to follow regulatory and technical developments in India as well as in other countries, critique policy and technology changes for discussions and give feedback to relevant stakeholders including the government.

Responsibilities:

The candidate will be responsible for:

• Developing network with state and central level regulators, senior officials at industries, and fuel and material suppliers to get a comprehensive understanding of policy issues in the sector.
• Carrying out research by collecting primary data from the site by making field visits, surveying industries, meeting relevant stakeholders, reviewing secondary literature and analysing the same with a good understanding of data interpretation and presentation. Travel component may consume 30 per cent of the work hours in a year.
• He / She will make collaborations with industry experts to identify gaps, document best practices and prepare roadmap for individual industrial sectors to give technical guidance and corrective ideas to relevant stakeholders. Assist the regulatory agencies to monitor the implementation of the roadmap.
• To work in-depth on promoting material circularity and resource recovery in various industrial sectors to promote circular economy in industries.
• He / She would collect relevant data on hazardous and non -hazardous waste generated by industries in a particular area and work towards identifying the major waste streams and plan for their effective recycling and disposal.
• He / She will analyse the existing policies to understand the success rate by initiating surveys, and improvise the framework to promote energy and material efficiency along with reduction in emissions from industries.
• He / She will work to understand the current carbon dioxide emission levels from the industrial segments, interact with relevant stakeholders from the sector to frame a roadmap to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in industries.
• Organize training programmes to build capacity of state-level regulators to ensure robust monitoring and enforcement.
• Be responsible for dissemination of the team’s research through active engagement with policy makers, industrial associations, media, think tanks and civil society. Advocacy would require public engagement including organising/participating in seminars and interacting with regulators, industrial area developers and industry officials.
• Represent CSE at meetings/conferences and communicate with press, television and electronic media.

The candidate will report to Programme Manager. The candidate needs to assist the Programme Manager in representing to relevant agencies, demonstrate and validate the research findings of the team, and streamline future course.

Location: New Delhi.

Qualification and Experience: 

• Passionate about working on improving industrial sectors environmentally.
• Relevant Master’s degree in environmental sector with specialisation in pollution control or material sciences.
• Minimum of 4-5 years of relevant work experience in industrial pollution control research and practice or material circularity and recovery streams.
• Exposure to environmental policy in industrial domain will be a plus.
• Candidates with lesser experience will be considered for junior positions.

Necessary Skills:

• Strong research, analytical and writing skills with an ability to quickly absorb and analyse wide-ranging material and produce well written and well-structured reports for the purpose of communication with larger audience as well as relevant stakeholders on that issue. The person should be well versed with basics of scientific writing eg: having knowledge of referencing etc.
• Willing to travel within and outside India. Travel component of the work would consume at-least 30 per cent of the work-hours.
• Be flexible to contribute content in emergency pollution issues occurring at industries
• Precise, lucid writing; confident and articulate speaker.
• Vital that the candidate can deliver, meet tight deadlines and is self-motivated.
• Good inter personal skills and is required to be good at networking skills.

CSE pays a competitive salary that will be commensurate with qualification and experience.

How to apply: 

Candidates can apply online (preferable) or through post.

For online submission: Please visit http://jobs.cseindia.org and choose ‘PO – Ind’. 

Or Post it to: 

Ms. Jagdeep Gupta,
Executive Director- Planning & Operations
Centre for Science and Environment
41, Tughlakabad Institutional Area,
New Delhi – 110062
Tel: 29956394/6339/5124, Fax: 29955879

PS: Only short listed candidates will be contacted for an interview and written test.