Senior Consultant - Sustainability

Job Description

Overview

Our CS&A team is seeking an experienced Senior/Principal Sustainability Consultant to be based in Riyadh, KSA. The role requires proven expertise in delivering strategic sustainability advisory on large-scale developments, ideally across KSA and the wider Middle East, with a strong track record in achieving Mostadam Communities and LEED for Cities and Communities certifications across complex, multi-asset portfolios.

The successful candidate will have demonstrable experience leading certification processes end-to-end, including consolidating evidence across large developments, and maintaining effective working relationships with key authorities such as the National Housing Council (NHC), Sustainable Building (SB), and ideally the Green Business Certification Inc. (GBCI), ensuring close coordination throughout the certification lifecycle.

The role is delivered as a full-time secondment within a leading developer, providing direct, embedded support to the client while maintaining a formal reporting line into our Sustainability and Environment (S&E) team. This position requires acting as a key interface between the client and our internal teams, ensuring alignment with AtkinsRéalis standards, governance, and technical quality while representing our capability on the ground.

The successful candidate will work as part of a distributed team across the UAE, KSA, and India, driving collaboration, coordinating inputs, and ensuring consistent delivery across multiple workstreams. The role also involves knowledge transfer, maintaining strong communication channels between the client and S&E leadership, and supporting the integration of best practice, innovation, and certification strategies into the client’s development portfolio.

Your role

• Develop a thorough understanding of the Client’s master plan, infrastructure, and public realm, ensuring sustainability requirements remain aligned as designs evolve throughout the project lifecycle.
• Lead the coordination and implementation of LEED for Cities and Communities (LfC) and Mostadam.
• Communities certification requirements across all master plan, infrastructure, public realm, and transport / civil structure packages.
• Monitor design and construction activities across development boundary, ensuring ongoing compliance with sustainability standards and proactively addressing risks and gaps.
• Establish and maintain a Smartsheet tracking document to monitor certification progress, scores, risks, and issues at both masterplan and asset level, with monthly updates in coordination with PMCs, consultants, and contractors.
• Act as the primary focal point for stakeholder engagement, including managing communications with certifying bodies and relevant authorities.
• Prepare and manage all certification documentation, including narratives, technical studies, simulations, and operational policies on behalf of Client.
• Coordinate and manage certification submissions, responding to review comments and driving processes through to final Mostadam Communities certification award and maintaining the already achieved LfC certification at hand.
• Lead and participate in regular progress meetings, providing clear updates on status, risks, and mitigation actions.
• Deliver monthly reporting summarising activities, progress, and key issues, in line with DC requirements.
• Manage certification registration and administration, including coordination of submissions, documentation, and associated processes.
• Provide sustainability inputs into tender documentation, including technical requirements and contract clauses aligned with LfC and Mostadam Communities, and masterplan objectives.
• Undertake regular site visits and engage directly with design and construction teams to verify implementation and drive performance.
• Act as a Mostadam Accredited Professional (AP), leading certification registration and engagement with Saudi Sustainable Building authorities.
• Support in review of asset-level design and construction submissions to ensure compliance with LEED, Mostadam, and Parksmart requirements.

About you

Key Competencies

• The successful candidate will be educated to degree / higher degree level in relevant subject (Engineering, Sustainable Energy, Building Services Engineering, Sustainable Development etc.) and will have achieved, chartered status and / or full or fellow membership of a recognized relevant professional body.
• 8-10 years’ experience across the fields of sustainability and certification in buildings and developments, including project management and business development experience.
• Experience in leading projects involving city / community scale sustainability certification appraisals (BREEAM, LEED, WELL, Mostadam), community scale carbon footprints, climate change assessments, net zero transitions (embodied or net zero operational buildings), or related services.
• Strategic sustainability advisory across large-scale, multi-asset developments.
• Deep knowledge of Mostadam Communities and LEED for Cities & Communities frameworks to achieving certification at the design and construction stages.
• End-to-end certification management, including evidence collation and submission.
• Understanding of sustainability strategies at project, portfolio, and organisational levels
• Familiarity with Middle East regulatory context, particularly KSA frameworks and authorities.
• Strong engagement with regulatory bodies (NHC, SB, GBCI)
• Manages and coordinates incoming documentation, ensuring efficient tracking, review, and alignment across stakeholders.
• Reviews and assesses design information directly using AutoCAD and related tools to validate compliance and technical integrity.
• Critically reviews and challenges shade and microclimate assessments, ensuring robustness of methodologies, assumptions, and outcomes.
• Managing multiple stakeholders across client, internal teams, design teams, contractors and authorities.
• Coordination of complex, multi-disciplinary workstreams across large mixed use development that has portions under design, re-design and construction.
• Oversight of deliverables across UAE, KSA, and India teams.
• Ensuring quality assurance, governance, and consistency with AtkinsRéalis standards
• Proven experience in business development and bid management within secondment role, including initiating opportunities with Client to preparing comprehensive technical and commercial proposals.

Personal Attributes

• Proactive, self-driven, and comfortable working in an embedded client role
• High level of accountability and ownership
• Strong organisational and problem-solving skills
• Adaptability in a fast-paced, evolving project environment
• Must have Mostadam Communities accreditation and at least one of the following credentials:
  • LEED Accredited Professional (LEED AP) with specialty (BD+C, ID+C, O+M, ND, Homes)
  • WELL Accredited Professional
  • Low Carbon Consultant/Low Carbon Assessor
  • Other credentials focused on sustainability and sustainable development.

The Individual

• Excellent analytic and communication skills - we believe in the use of quality data to drive objective decision making.
• Be highly self-motivated, possessing strong enthusiasm and commitment to delivering sustainable outcomes.
• Demonstrates strong capability in reviewing technical reports, data, drawings, and other outputs from design and contractor teams, providing clear, concise comments and defined resolution pathways to enable efficient client review and timely decision-making.
• Proven experience in Mostadam Construction Audits, ensuring contractors and appointed teams are fully prepared across documentation, site readiness, and post-audit close-out, in line with client requirements and authority expectations.
• Have strong report writing, communication and presentation skills.

Rewards & benefits

Explore the rewards and benefits that help you thrive – at every stage of your life and your career.

This includes:

• Tax-free salary.
• Life insurance coverage.
• Medical insurance.
• Annual leave balance.
• Company gratuity scheme.
• Discretionary bonus program.
• Annual flight contribution.
• Transportation & housing allowances.
• Employee Wellbeing Program: 24/7 access to specialists in finance, legal matters, family care, personal health, fitness, and nutrition.

Seize every opportunity to sharpen your skills, expand your expertise, and be recognized for the impact you make.

About AtkinsRéalis

We're AtkinsRéalis, a world-class engineering services and nuclear organization. We connect people, data and technology to transform the world's infrastructure and energy systems. Together, with our industry partners and clients, and our global team of consultants, designers, engineers and project managers, we can change the world. We're committed to leading our clients across our various end markets to engineer a better future for our planet and its people.

Find out more.

Worker Type

Employee

Job Type

Regular

At AtkinsRéalis, we seek to hire individuals with diverse characteristics, backgrounds and perspectives. We strongly believe that world-class talent makes no distinctions based on gender, ethnic or national origin, sexual identity and orientation, age, religion or disability, but enriches itself through these differences.