Sustainability Intern Review

My role is to work alongside the supply chain team to improve sustainability within the organization. Day to day tasks include data handling for carbon emissions and meetings with commodity managers to implement sustainability into purchasing decisions and communications with suppliers.

I have learned a lot about procurement and the technical process involved in inviting suppliers to work for the business. I was also involved in some tender response writing for sustainability disclosure which gave me a good insight into business strategy and how to structure work winning proposals. Finally, I learned how to use power BI to build dynamic dashboards to represent collected data.

Yes I was mainly left to get on with tasks without supervision, whilst knowing that if I needed help it was always available. Me and my line manager would have weekly meetings to discuss what I had completed that week and my tasks for next week but if I wanted to focus on a particularly area within the business then I was allowed to spend time on my 'own' projects.

I received plenty of training and guidance during my placement with access to good learning materials and invited to numerous calls to get up to speed with the processes going on within the business. I was also invited to other sections of the business to get an overall view of the company and to understand what my colleagues were doing daily.

The company culture is really strong with high prioritization of entry level talent and talent retention. The atmosphere within the office I worked in was also very friendly with a good office manager and plenty of colleagues who were willing to answer questions I had and show me how to do things

I really enjoyed the time I spent in my placement role as it significantly developed my career skills and provided me with great experience. There were some elements that were more difficult than others, although that is mainly due to the constantly shifting state of sustainability which sometimes made aspects of the role quite challenging.

Yes

My advice would be to make the most of the training resources offered to you and to ask as many questions as possible. So many different people have varying knowledge and so a different view can significantly improve your understanding. Also make sure to learn about the other business units to see if these would suit you more, everyone is more than willing to teach you more!