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Role Vacancy: This is Rubbish Campaign Coordinator – Communications & Engagement Lead 

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This is Rubbish Campaign Coordinator – Communications & Engagement Lead 

This is Rubbish (TiR) is now in its 10th year of working to raise awareness and change policy to reduce industry scale, pre-consumer food waste. TiR has been awarded funding by Poldham Puckham Charitable Trust to run a campaign to challenge the current perception of the issues and solutions for reducing food waste. In true TiR style the project will combine creative methods of engagement and events to build networks, while forming and promoting systemic policy changes.

Job purpose: 

This is Rubbish is recruiting a Campaign Coordinator who is committed to acting to reduce food waste and exposing the root causes that are mutual to many global environmental and social problems today.

The Campaign Coordinator leading on Communications and Engagement will collaborate with the Campaign Coordinator leading on Policy and Partnerships to jointly implement a project designed to challenge and shift the current narrative of food waste. The primary target audience are statutory organisations and stakeholders working in the field of environmental sustainability and climate justice. Both Campaign Coordinators will initially work alongside TiR Facilitators to shape the project and will work to their individual strengths to meet funded outputs and outcomes. 

Key activities/tasks

This role will focus on developing and communicating key messaging about the food system for  specific audiences, events & organisations and producing and promoting digital content.

  • Create comms strategy for reframing food waste narrative in terms which are accessible and appealing to different groups or audiences.
  • Identify and develop a set of targets and reporting indicators across campaign activity to effectively monitor impact in collaboration with the policy & partnership lead.  
  • Create key campaign content for media, social media and events including working with an animator and Partnerships & Policy Lead on the campaign film.  
  • Working with the Cirque de Surplus team, organise and deliver events targeted at shifting attitudes to food waste and making the connections between wasteful supply chains and broader societal problems like inequality, neoliberalism and colonialism.
  • Seek opportunities to participate in other suitable events to promote the campaign
  • Producing events with partners and other stakeholders to reach key organisations and sections of the public.
  • Managing activities and spending in-line with a project timeline and budget agreed with the project team.
  • Work strategically to extend the reach of TiR.
  • Seek opportunities to gain funding or commissions for TiR’s public engagement project ‘Cirque de Surplus’ to do development and outreach.
  • Work with the Policy & Partnerships lead to report on the effectiveness of campaigning tools and strategies and suggest ways forward.
  • Work closely with and brief Facilitators on campaign actions and progress.

Essential skills:

  • Experience of campaigning from inception through to delivery and evaluation.
  • Experience in designing effective social media and content for achieving campaign targets
  • Experience of communicating ideas to diverse audiences persuasively, with a view to shifting beliefs and deeper values
  • Experience of community outreach or mobilisation
  • Experience of events organisation and delivery
  • Knowledge and/or interest in food waste and current issues of the food system within broader context of sustainability and social justice
  • Good communication and interpersonal skills
  • Excellent IT skills
  • Experience managing budgets
  • Experience of effective networking and partnership work 
  • Strong numeracy, verbal and written communication and organisational skills with the ability to respond to queries in a timely and professional manner 
  • Ability to manage work time effectively and to prioritise appropriately, managing multiple project briefs
  • Enjoy sharing meals with colleagues

Desirable: 

  • Graphic design skills
  • Interest/education in fields of inequality, colonialism and neoliberalism.
  • Clean driving license
  • A background working on social and/or environmental justice campaigns

Fee: £120 per day @ 1.5 days per week

Contract period: Project beginning early April 2020. 6 months with the anticipated extension to 12 months

Location: Working remotely with hot desking space near Walthamstow, St James    Street and meeting space, Mare Street, Hackney.

Reports to: Designated This is Rubbish Facilitator.

Working with: Working closely with the Campaign Coordinator – Policy & Partnerships Lead. You will also work closely with an animator, the This is Rubbish Facilitator leading on communications and the This is Rubbish Facilitators who developed the project.

How to apply: Please send your CV and a brief covering letter (maximum 1 page) describing your suitability, experience and interest in this role to poppy@thisisrubbish.org.uk by 9am on Friday 13th March.

Full Job Description Download available here. 

Please complete an Equal Opportunities form online here. This form is not part of the application assessment process.

Interviews: Interviews will take place in East London on Friday 20th March. Please inform us if you are unable to make that date, we will be as flexible as possible.

Accessibility: This is Rubbish is an equal opportunity employer (see statement at the bottom of this job specification). Candidates who are shortlisted for interview will be given the opportunity to specify any access needs so that appropriate arrangements can be made.

Food waste in the future

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Photo: Chris King

It’s doubtful people will be going to the polls with food waste on their minds this election.  The future of the NHS, Brexit and climate change have dominated the election campaigns, and for good reason. If you’re reading this, you’re probably no stranger to the climate implications of food waste. Hubbub’s recently published research showed this issue is very important to people and that they believe retailers play a significant role in shaping our habits. In fact, what it shows is that people are looking to individuals, communities and the market to resolve the issue and that’s what we’ve been told to do.

This is Rubbish (TiR) has been looking at the issue in the wider context of global food and agriculture and what will happen in this country after the election. Nearly a billion people living in food poverty globally could be fed on less than a quarter of the food being wasted in the UK, US and Europe while the Government’s Environmental Audit Committee found that between 1.97 and 3 million people in the UK are undernourished and in London alone 9 million meals a day are needed to alleviate hunger according to City Harvest. This is happening in a country where, according to the latest estimates by WRAP, around 10 million tonnes of food and drink is wasted after the farm every year. Out of this, approximately 70% is avoidable wastage which could have been used to feed the hungry and malnutritioned. How are we getting it so wrong? Not only are redistribution initiatives unable to meet the demands of the problem but this strategy does not alleviate the environmental harm caused by a broken food system.

After many years of campaigning, in 2014 TiR set out to deliver education programmes that informed young people about the causes and effects of food waste. That is, when they throw food away, they are wasting everything that went into its production. Even though the proportion of food wasted at the consumption stage is 22% of the total, the carbon footprint at this stage is almost 37% of the total carbon footprint of the food chain. The next step is to examine how the system is allowing this to happen when the costs are so high. The very fact that we can and have been wasting up to a third of all food that is produced is because we have a food system predicated on market forces with little or no accountability. In reality this means that we can exploit the land and resources of poorer countries and transfer waste onto them through unfair trading practises. We can do this in a country where the retail sector has the ability to set prices and pick and choose from global food markets regardless of the human and environmental cost.

Prominent figures from the world of finance are finally saying we need to “rethink capitalism and its obsession with constant economic growth” and that our current system “borrows from the future while destroying the environment” as reported last month in the FT.

Transition is inevitable, justice is not

We know we need to address climate change. Channel 4’s recent climate debate shows how seriously most of the leadership candidates are taking this. However, there is a danger of focusing the narrative around single issues rather than looking at the social and economic drivers of the climate crisis.

We cannot put in place goals for our own country without looking at what they mean for other countries. If we do this, we will surely never be able to address climate change in time. We need to look at the problems of the food system, including waste, as rooted in global inequality perpetuated by our economics. We are already seeing that climate change is forcing migration due to food and water shortages and the political instability that follows. Continuing down a road of extractive and consumptive behaviour will exacerbate this.

Across the world we are seeing calls for a Just Transition. The Green New Deal movement, The TUC, Friends of the Earth (FoE) to name a few, have identified that carbon neutrality cannot be achieved using old thinking and exploitation of the local or international labour force. In this country, nobody wants to see lives affected as they were by the shutting of the coal mines in the 1980’s.

As FoE rightly puts it “The real choice is not jobs or climate. It’s both or neither. Transition is inevitable, justice is not.” When we signed the Paris Accord we agreed to  ‘Take into account the imperatives of a just transition of the workforce and the creation of decent work and quality jobs in accordance with nationally defined development priorities.” TiR is looking to the next government to honour this.

TiR agrees with the findings of the 2018 EAT-Lancet report: food will be the defining issue of this century we are calling for the next Government to help design waste out of the supply chain and fix a broken system. Our next campaign will seek to engage stakeholders in changing the narrative to reframe food waste as a problem rooted in inequality and power imbalances.

To keep up to date with the campaign sign up for our newsletter here or go to our donation page here.

Join us: Apply to be a director of This is Rubbish

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Are you a food waste warrior? Would you like to help us make changes to a broken food system?

This is Rubbish (TiR) works to reduce food waste from farm to fork; using policy campaigns, values-led education, the arts and public events. In 2018 we are expanding our work to include reducing consumer food waste supporting the aims of SDG 12.3 and respond the the changing political and social landscape. Our activity is underpinned by the three guiding values: Active citizenship, social justice and environmental justice.

Food waste is an environmental and social tragedy. UK businesses throw out over 7 million tonnes of food annually, that is enough to lift all the hungry people in the UK out of food poverty, and equal to about half the food wasted in the UK. If food waste were a country it would be the third biggest emitter of greenhouse gases.

TiR is looking to recruit new non- executive directors to join the current team in guiding the strategic direction of the organisation and ensure that projects are working towards goals in a competent and creative manner in line with TiR ideals and standards. The organisation focuses on positive messaging around the value of food. Joining our team will mean eating a lot of delicious food and meeting a broad spectrum of inspiring people through our campaiging and events.

The three keys areas of TiR’s work that the directors will oversee and facilitate are;

  • Affecting change thought campaigning
  • Values-led Education
  • Day to day management

To apply please submit your CV and covering letter (1 page maximum) to mickey@thisisrubbish.org.uk by 18/06/18. Interviews to take place late June.

Director role and responsibilities include;

  • Defining and delivering organisational aims, objectives and strategic direction
  • Providing guidance for the organisation and specific projects
  • Providing high level organisational and project direction
  • Reviewing and upholding policies
  • Signing off and being a named senior contact on funding applications
  • Ensuring that TiR, a Community Interest Company complies with its constitution, company law and reports to Companies House.
  • Bringing relevant outside perspective to organisational direction, development and growth
  • Safeguarding the good name and values of the organisation
  • Being an advocate for This is Rubbish and its cause at all times – asking people to join, giving out leaflets, networking and talking about our work

Please email mickey@thisisrubbish.org.uk to request the document ‘ TiR Director Roles and Responsibilities’ for full details.

Time Commitment
All volunteer director input in valuable. The primary requirement is for realistic commitments to enable accurate planning and achievable targets. All directors required to attend: monthly skype catch up calls, and quarterly face to face meetings

What TiR seeks from new non- executive directors
The TiR facilitators are a motivated, passionate and creative team. We seek individuals who can demonstrate that they are driven to make a difference to social and environmental issues and will find working with the current team fun/interesting/ exciting and rewarding.

Previous engagement in social and environmental issues does not need be related to food waste. We seek individuals with significant experience and skills which cover some of the following areas:

  • Accounting and financial management
  • Fundraising
  • Communications and media relations
  • Food policy
  • Community and youth engagement

Why be a TiR non-executive director?
This is an excellent opportunity to take up a senior role in a respected, national CIC which has the potential to bring about significant changes to supermarket supply chain practice. You will also be guiding the new Edible Education project which has the potential to reach 1000’s of young people and give them a platform to make their views and ideas heard.

Benefits include:

  • A great opportunity to use your existing experience and to develop new skills
  • Flexible involvement – skype meetings to salvaging surplus food.
  • Working with others to make a difference both locally and nationally
  • The potential to meet and discuss issues with like-minded people

The role is voluntary although we will pay all out-of-pocket expenses with prior agreement.

 

We look forward to hearing from you. The Rubbish Team