Location: Hybrid (home working / London office)

Start date: August 2025 or as soon as possible

Title: Associate or Senior Associate, depending on experience

Reporting to: Associate Director, Nature programmes

About the Green Finance Institute (GFI):

Founded in 2019 to accelerate the deployment of finance towards a net zero and resilient economy, the GFI is an independent, commercially focused and philanthropically-funded organisation, seed funded by the UK Government and the City of London Corporation.

The GFI has already established a leading and differentiated position based on a distinct strategy of identifying impactful interventions to unlock barriers to deploying capital at pace and scale towards sector specific, real-economy outcomes such as the energy efficiency of buildings, decarbonisation of road transport, nature-based financial solutions, international carbon markets and developing markets’ climate smart infrastructure.

Through both creating and managing networks of dynamic decision makers across financial services, policy, business, academia and civil society, the GFI is renowned for its practical financial expertise, efficient project execution and generous collaboration, increasingly positioning the organisation as a partner of choice for both policy-makers and market participants to connect political ambition and industry objectives with well-designed solutions for the financial sector both in the UK and overseas.

What's the role?

This role supports the broader GFI Nature team and sits within the UK workstream. As an Associate you will support our work with senior stakeholders at a core group of UK businesses across sectors including agrifood, water and infrastructure, to understand the potential for regional investments into nature-based solutions (NbS), from both the private and public sector.

In 2023, the GFI published a report that showed nature degradation – compounded with climate risk – could cause a 12% loss to UK GDP, including through increasingly severe incidents of drought and flooding.

The GFI is now seeking to take this down to a regional level providing real world examples, understanding how nature/climate risks are impacting businesses and regional economies, and what businesses need to confidently invest in NbS. NbS offers significant opportunities for resilience at a landscape and regional scale yet, at present, remains underinvested in the UK.

Working with the Associate Director and broader team, you will work with businesses and regional stakeholders including local governments to identify:

• Where nature and climate-related risks may pose business and economic resilience challenges – including flood risk, water scarcity, soil health decline and heat stress.
• The potential for delivery of NbS at scale to address these challenges, building willingness from local businesses and organisations to work together.
• The potential for co-investment models across different regions in the UK.

The role will involve working closely with businesses, government bodies, eNGOs and landowners.You will need to influence a wide range of stakeholders and show how this concept docks into growth-focused initiatives and other existing political and economic priorities.

The role will also involve research and analysis to identify regions across the UK with the highest potential for co-investment models as well as the businesses within those regions with the strongest business cases for investment. As the workstream develops, research will also be required into the key parameters of co-investment models and how these can be best calibrated to different regional contexts.

This role sits within the GFI Nature UK workstream which also includes leadership of the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) UK Consultation Group and the development of Nature-Positive Transition Pathways for business and finance. You will work with the Associate Director for this workstream, with the potential for the regional resilience work to be built out into a fuller team.

This role offers the opportunity to tap into an area of nature finance that is rapidly gaining momentum, working with leading organisations.

We'll trust you to:

• Convene various stakeholder groups in different regions and sectors on the concept of nature-based resilience and build consensus on potential action.
• Engage businesses on their willingness, identifying barriers to co-investment and potential solutions.
• Research and prioritise UK regions with the highest potential for successful co-investment models, and high priority businesses within those regions.
• Research the landscape of potential co-investment models and assess how these can be best calibrated for different regions in the UK.
• Feed into local and national policy forums where relevant to the concept of nature-based resilience, including Local Nature Recovery Strategies and Devolution-linked regional policy.

You need to have:

• Substantial experience in nature finance or business-linked sustainability, ideally in key sectors (built environment, agrifood or water) or on landscape-level projects and investments.
• Outstanding interpersonal and relationship building skills with senior-level officials, partners and influencers across private and public sectors.
• Strong research skills and the ability to structure and plan clear approaches to solving complex problems.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills with a proven capacity to translate information and big ideas into actionable plans.
• A strong independent work ethic in addition to an ability to work as part of an agile and fast-moving team.
• High attention to detail.

If this sounds like you:

Apply if you think we’re a good match and we’ll get in touch to let you know the next steps.

Please submit your CV and a short cover letter (no more than two sides of A4) describing how you meet the specific requirements for the post.

The closing date for applications is Monday 21 st July 2025.Please apply via the online application form that can be found on our website.

Please note:

• If you do not already hold the right to work in the UK and/or require sponsorship in order to continue working here, you should think carefully before applying.
• The Green Finance Institute is an equal opportunity employer and we value diversity. If you are invited to interview and need any reasonable adjustments during the interview process, please let us know.