Sustainability Research and Advocacy Director

Day to day, you're doing research and advocacy work on sustainability issues — publishing analyses, briefing policymakers, building coalitions with peer organizations, speaking at industry events, and engaging journalists on topics where your organization wants to shape the conversation. The work mixes intellectual content with the relationship-building and strategic judgment of external positioning.

The rhythm alternates between research production (writing papers, building data analyses, developing policy briefs) and external engagement (conferences, legislative meetings, coalition calls, media interviews). Major external events — climate summits, regulatory comment periods, legislation cycles — shape the calendar significantly, creating sprint periods around high-priority advocacy moments.

The hard part is making research land in policy conversations that move slowly and are shaped by many competing interests. The most technically rigorous analysis doesn't automatically win — the advocacy craft is knowing when to publish, who to brief, and how to frame findings for audiences who didn't read the methodology section.