Head of Product Life Cycle (Sustainability)

We are Reckitt

Home to the world's best loved and trusted hygiene, health, and nutrition brands. Our purpose defines why we exist: to protect, heal and nurture in the relentless pursuit of a cleaner, healthier world. We are a global team united by this purpose.

Join us in our fight to make access to the highest quality hygiene, wellness, and nourishment a right and not a privilege.

​Corporate Communications & External Affairs​

In March 2021, we announced our 2030 Sustainability ambitions, for a cleaner, healthier world, backed by more than £1bn in investment over the next decade. Our 2030 ambitions build on the progress we have already made and have been chosen to reflect the areas where we can maximise our positive and enduring impact. Our strategy is focused on:

• More Sustainable brands – every one of our brands is directing its focus to where it can make most impact in accelerating progress to the UN Sustainable Development Goals
• Healthier planet – recognising the increasing connection between people’s health, halting climate change, and protecting biodiversity
• Fairer Society – enabling a fair diverse and inclusive society as an employer and in our value chain

About the role

The role leads Reckitt’s strategy on sustainable product development, carbon and water footprinting, and life-cycle assessment to future-proof our product portfolio and our business. Through the collaboration with our R&D and commercial teams, the Head of Product Lifecycle ensures that sustainability is part of the core design criteria from the earliest phase of product innovation, but also considered when changes are made to existing products.

Your responsibilities

Leadership over sustainable product innovation

• • Drive the development of more sustainable products by acting as a subject matter expert on sustainability (inc. LCA, product carbon & water footprints, emerging LCA impact categories) to provide input into product development and renovation across all the brands of Reckitt’s portfolio. Provide technical depth and guidance on carbon & water hotspots across natural and synthetic ingredients, packaging materials & processes, and consumer use, including relevant trade-offs between different life cycle stages. Bring in relevant expertise from wider team members & external partners as relevant.
  • Leverage existing operating models and ways of working to help embed life-cycle thinking, and embed roadmaps and action plans into brand strategies
     

Evolution and maintenance of tools & systems to support the business agenda

• • Build and strengthen data and IT systems to facilitate better internal/external reporting and planning to create synergies for efficient delivery of Sustainability Ambitions by:
    • providing relevant data & subject matter expertise to define IT development programmes, through to end 2025 to enable non-financial reporting requirements on Taxonomy/CSRD and TCFD/TNFD.
    • developing plans to improve efficiency and/or future-proofing for upcoming data & systems needs on carbon scope 3 & water product footprint, NR forecast and SIC development and supplier data integration, and effective scope 3 carbon reduction planning.

Data management, Reporting and communications

• • Ensure that product, brand, market, category & GBU data are communicated effectively to stakeholders across the business, providing clear guidance on opportunities & risks and enabling stakeholders to build action plans and roadmaps.
  • Ensure tracking & reporting throughout the year against internal and external KPI’s relating to product-level metrics, which include among others
    • Lead reporting to track progress against target of 50% carbon & water footprint reduction across the value chain of our products and of increased %NR from more sustainable product.
    • Collaborate with Reporting Managers to facilitate reporting of relevant data to investors, customers, indices (e.g. DJSI, CDP) by establishing ways of working and providing access & transparency on relevant data and feeding future data needs into development plans for tools & systems.

Capability building

• • Manage and coordinate our Sustainability champions networks within other functions.
  • Build sustainability capability & awareness on carbon & water footprints throughout product development and relevant procurement teams by creating training materials, dashboards, analysing & converting reporting data-sets into brand-specific analyses of hotspots and focus areas for reduction.

Management

• • Manage 4 direct reports
  • Identify & determine the business needs for external third party consultants and manage these ensuring quality of outputs and desired outcomes to best complement our internal capabilities.

The experience we're looking for

• Academic qualifications and LCA experience.
• Significant experience in Sustainability and/or R&D, including experience of delivering Life Cycle Assessments at product and portfolio levels, applying LCAs and life cycle thinking inside a business setting, making recommendations, and designing and implementing action plans following on from the analysis.
• Demonstrated ability to collaborate in a cross-functional environment, engage and influence stakeholders to deliver the business agenda.
• Experience in managing a team of in-house technical experts and consultants.
• Healthier planet – recognising the increasing connection between people’s health, halting climate change, and protecting biodiversity

The skills for success

Sustainability, Life Cycle Assessment, Strategic Thinking, Environmental Knowledge, Stakeholder Engagement, Project Management, Data Analysis, Regulatory Compliance, Cross-Functional Collaboration, Reporting and Communication, Environmental Management Systems, Auditing, Risk Management, Sustainable Sourcing:, Training and Education, Regulatory Knowledge, Human Rights, Due Diligence, International Standards, Stakeholder Collaboration, Training and Capacity Building, Innovation.

What we offer

With inclusion at the heart of everything we do, working alongside our four global Employee Resource Groups, we support our people at every step of their career journey, helping them to succeed in their own individual way.

We invest in the wellbeing of our people through parental benefits, an Employee Assistance Program to promote mental health, and life insurance for all employees globally. We have a range of other benefits in line with the local market. Through our global share plans we offer the opportunity to save and share in Reckitt's potential future successes. For eligible roles, we also offer short-term incentives to recognise, appreciate and reward your work for delivering outstanding results. You will be rewarded in line with Reckitt's pay for performance philosophy.

Equality

We recognise that in real life, great people don't always 'tick all the boxes'. That's why we hire for potential as well as experience. Even if you don't meet every point on the job description, if this role and our company feels like a good fit for you, we still want to hear from you.

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, disability or medical condition; colour, ethnicity, race, citizenship, and national origin; religion, faith; pregnancy, family status and caring responsibilities; sexual orientation; sex, gender identity, gender expression, and transgender identity; protected veteran status; size or any other basis protected by appropriate law.