Greening the Blue Consultant, Home-based or Nairobi

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is offering a consultancy full-time position within the Greening & Sustainability Project in our Global Mobility and Infrastructure (GMIS) Section.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is a global United Nations organization which mandate is to protect and assist refugees and other persons of its concern world-wide and to seek durable solutions to their plight; UNHCR is present in 134 countries with offices in 540 locations.

Title: Greening the Blue Consultant
Duty Station: Home based or Nairobi, Kenya
Duration: 6 months
Contract Type: Consultancy contract
Closing date: 13/04/2022
Start date: 1 May 2022

Organisational context

In 2007, the UN Climate Neutral Strategy was developed, and organizations committed to move their respective organizations to climate neutrality. Since then, UNHCR has continuously improved its efforts in promoting the careful use of energy resources by refugees, host communities, partner organizations and as a priority by UNHCR itself. In 2019, UNHCR developed its Global Strategy for Sustainable Energy 2019-2024 which aims to enable persons of concern to UNHCR to meet their energy needs in a safe and sustainable manner. It also launched the Clean Energy Challenge and is currently working on a first comprehensive Strategic Framework on Climate Action.

In 2020, UNHCR developed a new internal Greening and Sustainability strategy to improve its environmental performance, climate compatibility and resource efficiency. The UNHCR Greening and Sustainability strategy focuses on three main areas:

Green Box: measure global energy consumption of UNHCR offices to migrate from fossil fuels to renewable energy

Procure and install electricity meters in all UNHCR offices;​ create centrally managed dashboard with real-time data; carry out energy audits of all UNHCR offices; and​ prepare business cases for each UNHCR office to identify alternative energy options.

Green Fund: Develop innovative financing model to migrate UNHCR offices from fossil fuels to renewable energy

Establish internal UNHCR Green Revolving Fund to convert UNHCR Operations from diesel to renewable energy; use the Fund to procure from private sector independent power producers through Power Purchase Agreements; aim to achieve positive carbon impact and positive financial impact to budget (cost effective).

Green Data: Implement dynamic technology platform for real-time monitoring and data visualization

Establish systems and policies for real-time, high quality data collection of GHG emissions, energy, waste, and water across UNHCR; create data warehouse and dashboards for easy monitoring, reporting and decision-making.

The position

The Greening the Blue Consultant position is located within in the Greening & Sustainability Team of the Global Mobility and Infrastructure Service (GMIS) within the Division of Financial and Administrative Management (DFAM). DFAM contributes to safeguarding the financial resources entrusted to UNHCR by maintaining and improving the financial and administrative systems, policies and procedures and promoting cost-effective and transparent use of these resources. GMIS is a new service within DFAM which merges four functions: global fleet management, global travel, global facilities management, and global asset management. Greening & Sustainability is one of GMIS main cross-functional areas.

The Greening the Blue Consultant will focus mainly on supporting the Greening & Sustainability Team in performing analyses for countries hosting UNHCR offices, assessing each country’s usage of renewable energy sources. The Greening the Blue Report (GtB) is a yearly report detailing the UN System’s environmental footprint and efforts to reduce it. The Greening the Blue Consultant will be leading the data collection process for Greening the Blue 2022 reporting cycle with all UNHCRs 540 offices.

Duties and responsibilities

• Lead the data collection process for GtB 2022 reporting cycle with all UNHCRs 540 offices.
• Provide UNHCR offices with GtB 2022 reporting technical support on excel sheets.
• Calculate the environmental footprint of each UNHCR offices using provided calculation tools on the excel sheets.
• Check results to ensure proper processing of data on the excel sheets.
• Collate results to provide each UNHCR offices with a summary file of environmental data for each office on the excel sheets.
• Format inventory results for presentation in the 2022 GtB Report.
• Provide 2022 GtB Report data in other formats as requested by the senior management.
• Create PowerBI dashboard of the results of the reporting.
• Create a table/an overview with final evaluations and recommendations for UNHCR offices/countries as well as lessons learned of other organizations for either groups of countries/offices or on a case-by-case basis based on the findings;
• Knowledge management plan which identifies GtB tools, reports, inventory data which may be of broad interest, and development of timeline for releasing news and stories, promotion of tools and the GtB report.
• Conduct weekly reporting on staff attendance in the office;
• Collaborate and coordinate with internal (UNHCR HQ, Regional Bureaux, Country, and Field offices) and external relevant stakeholders (IRENA, other UN agencies, etc.);
• Other duties as required.

Deliverables

Support to the data collection and analysis of UNHCR countries and offices on the GtB reporting cycle for 2022 provided to offices and senior management.

Delivery Periodicity, as applicable: Regular oral updates and each working month short written summary of work done to be together submitted with invoice, actions required from co-workers and information on the work steps to follow, as well as pending items that need resolution.

Essential minimum qualifications and professional experience required

• Advanced university degree in engineering, electrical engineering, sustainable development studies, economics, business administration, environmental management, energy technology, or relevant fields.
• A minimum of six years relevant professional experience involving technical and analytical responsibilities;
• Familiarity with and professional experience directly related to sustainability, energy, and infrastructure topics;
• Proven data collection, analysis, and communication skills;
• Proven record in producing simple, clear, and high-quality strategic documents;
• Advanced skills in using data analytics tools and Microsoft Office Applications;
• Experience working in humanitarian or global development settings, and/or for the UN or other humanitarian/development agencies preferred.
• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another UN language is an asset.

Location

The successful candidate will be home based or based in Nairobi, Kenya.

Conditions

The consultancy is for six months, and the start date is 1 May 2022. It is a full-time role with working hours starting from 9.00am to 6.00pm Monday to Friday (40 hours per week).

Supervisor of the Individual Consultant: Research & Data Specialist, Greening & Sustainability Team, GMIS, DFAM.