Head of CSR Huizen (36-40 hours)

The Head of CSR role at Lidl Netherlands is a fantastic opportunity to work within an organization that is future-oriented and places a strong emphasis on sustainability and health. You will work in the Corporate Affairs department, a close-knit and driven department where policy is both developed and executed. Together with your manager (the Head of Corporate Affairs), the Head of Communications, and the Manager Public Affairs, you form the management team of Corporate Affairs. You are also the contact person for the CSR department at Lidl International and your peers in each of the 31 other countries in which we are active. There are various (international) opportunities within Lidl to grow and/or further develop yourself.

• Laptop, phone, (electric) car, and pension scheme. 
• A salary of at least € 6,963.73 gross per month (excluding holiday allowance) based on 40 hours, whereby your expertise and experience determine your final starting salary. 
• 24 vacation days and 3 ADV days based on full-time employment. 
• Attention to your health and development: free fruit, training, and various forms of coaching.
• Lunch at a Lidl price in our company restaurant.
• The possibility to work from home one day a week. A contract of 36 hours (working a half day on Wednesday or Friday) is possible.

Do you want to make a real impact with your passion for responsible business and get the chance to make the (retail) world more sustainable? You can make this unique opportunity happen within our commercial, dynamic, and innovative organization!

As a supermarket chain, we have a major impact on the world around us. That is why we have had a progressive sustainability agenda for years, with tangible results. For example, we work on improving our assortment, the way we build or expand our branches and distribution centers, how we reduce food waste, and how we handle raw materials.

Boldness and decisiveness are what distinguish Lidl in this regard. For instance, we were the first supermarket in the Netherlands to stop selling tobacco, and we are the first supermarket to have set a concrete, quantitative target linked to the "Schijf van Vijf" (the nutritional guidelines) of the Voedingscentrum. Additionally, all our stores in the Netherlands are completely free of natural gas, and we will be the first retailer in the world to switch completely to electric supply for our stores in 2027.

Through our smart, transparent, and efficient way of working, we can make sustainable and healthy products affordable and accessible to everyone. We don't do this alone: to realize our ambitions in terms of sustainability and health, we work with suppliers, knowledge institutions, and social organizations, for example. The ecosystem that Lidl is part of - the Schwarz Gruppe - helps us with this. Thus, part of our assortment is produced by Schwarz Produktion, and we repurpose leftover raw materials from our operations together with PreZero.

With your energy and proactivity, you will strengthen, together with your team, how much sustainable and responsible business is already alive throughout the entire organization. You will maintain the overview to ensure we stay on course to realize our existing objectives. You fulfill a crucial role in developing, implementing, and continuously improving our sustainability strategy and policy - at a corporate level. You also monitor and report on progress both internally and externally. You involve both internal and external stakeholders in many of the topics and operate as a true connector. 

• Leadership: as a team manager, you get energy from leading, coaching, and developing the 3 team members. You bring overview and structure, but also know how to accelerate when opportunities arise.
• Knowledge: with your open mind and knowledge of concepts such as planetary health diet and the donut economy, you involve us in social developments that we as Lidl can accelerate. You and the team either have the knowledge yourselves or know exactly where in the organization you need to be to retrieve the necessary information. To transfer all knowledge to our colleagues, you and the team, along with the aforementioned knowledge network, also provide internal sustainability programs and training. To stay ahead of the curve, you closely monitor relevant developments and emerging and evolving legislation. You analyze and translate this knowledge for colleagues, for example, on core themes such as food waste, climate, raw materials, health, and the protein transition.
• Collaboration: you involve other departments in various sustainability projects where your own team is the driver, but you are at least as often substantively involved in initiatives taken elsewhere in the organization. For example, in Construction & Real Estate, HR, Marketing, or Purchasing. You are the director of the periodic coordination for this. You work closely with the Quality & Sustainability department: this department  has a dedicated team that focuses, among other things, on a sustainable, fair, and healthy assortment and making our chains future-proof.  
• Stakeholder engagement: outside the organization, you maintain a significant network with national partners such as social organizations or knowledge institutions. You also coordinate the rollout of our national and local donation policy and our cooperation with, for example, the Food Banks.

In short, you are a driving force behind the sustainability agenda within and outside Lidl and help maintain our distinctive position in the market.

• You are able to think at both a strategic and practical level about the (potential) business case of concrete sustainable solutions and initiatives, and can communicate these in an inspiring manner.
• Colleagues value your enthusiasm, proactivity, pragmatism, and flexibility.
• With your persuasiveness and strong organizational sensitivity, you succeed in getting others on board and connecting them within a large, complex organization. To ensure that we also achieve actual results, you combine this with strong coordinating skills so that ideas and plans also receive follow-up.
• Naturally, you are a strong communicator and an excellent networker. 
• You have a WO (higher education) work and thinking level and you have developed in the field of sustainability within the context of the business world.

A salary starting from € 6,963.73,- gross per month (based on 40 hours).

Your expertise and experience determine how high you ultimately enter.