Remote — candidate must be based in a time zone between UTC+1 and UTC+8. Reports to the COO or CEO.

Job Description

We are looking for an experienced Carbon Project & Certification Manager to own the technical and regulatory pathway that turns a biochar facility into certified, issued and defensible carbon removal credits. Reporting to the COO or CEO, you will lead project design, certification and compliance across our portfolio under Puro.earth, Carbon Standards International (CSI), Rainbow Standard and Isometric.

This is a management role with a hands-on floor. You will direct the specialists, consultants, engineers and field teams who contribute to techno-economic studies, life cycle assessments and field compliance — and you must be able to produce any of that work yourself when the situation requires it. We are not looking for someone who only manages a queue of consultants, nor for a pure analyst who cannot run a stakeholder-heavy programme.

Key Responsibilities

• Project Design & Methodology
  • Assess each opportunity against eligible methodologies and recommend the certification route, weighing credit yield per tonne, cost and duration of certification, and buyer acceptance.
  • Design projects to be certifiable from the outset: feedstock eligibility and competing-use analysis, pyrolysis configuration, end-use pathway, project boundary, baseline and leakage.
  • Build and defend the additionality case, including the investment analysis route where the standard requires it.
  • Author Project Design Documents, deviation requests and clarification submissions, and manage the Q&A loop with the standard until approval.
• Certification, Registries & Audits
  • Own the certification calendar across the portfolio: facility registration, audit scheduling, crediting periods, monitoring and output reporting, issuance.
  • Act as our counterpart to certification bodies and registries, including role designations under the CSI framework (C-Sink Manager, C-Sink Trader, Biochar Trader).
  • Prepare, host and close out validation and verification audits — evidence pack, pre-audit readiness review, VVB management, corrective action and non-conformity closure.
  • Maintain a complete, audit-ready evidence chain for every project: batch records, mass balance, lab analyses, chain-of-custody, contracts and calculation workbooks.
  • Track issuance against forecast and flag deviations early enough to be managed commercially.
• Quantification, Techno-Economic Assessment & LCA
  • Own the removal calculation per project: feedstock characterisation, biochar yield, organic carbon and H/C ratio, permanence factor, process and transport emissions, baseline, leakage and conservativeness deductions.
  • Own the techno-economic model family across project archetypes — capex/opex, feedstock cost, removal yield and pricing, capital stack, levelised cost of removal, IRR, NPV, sensitivity — feeding both the additionality analysis and the investment case from one set of assumptions.
  • Commission, review and where necessary produce life cycle assessments consistent with ISO 14040 / 14044 and the requirements of the applicable methodology.
  • Establish version control, assumption registers and source referencing so any figure shown to a VVB, buyer or investor can be traced in minutes.
• dMRV & Data Integrity
  • Act as internal methodology client to the CTO and the dMRV engineering team: translate methodology text into platform requirements — what is captured, at what frequency, with what accuracy and audit trail.
  • Define and enforce data quality control: calibration regimes, mass balance reconciliation, dry-matter protocols, missing-data and outlier rules.
  • Validate that platform outputs reconcile exactly to submitted reports, and lead the demonstration of the platform to auditors.
• Field Teams & Partner Compliance
  • Translate methodology requirements into practical field protocols — feedstock receipt and sampling, dry-matter assessment, kiln and reactor records, biochar sampling, storage, dispatch and end-use documentation — written so operators can follow them.
  • Train and audit field teams and implementing partners in India and at partner projects, including internal audits ahead of third-party verification.
  • Manage the laboratory relationship and analytical programme, and secure downstream chain-of-custody and end-use evidence.
  • Maintain the environmental and social compliance layer: E&S assessment, stakeholder consultation, grievance mechanism and safeguards.
• Stakeholder Engagement
  • Be the day-to-day technical counterpart for certification bodies, VVBs, laboratories, technology suppliers, implementing partners and project SPV stakeholders.
  • Represent Circonomy in standard-setting consultations and technical forums, and feed what you learn back into project design.

Qualifications

• 5–8 years in carbon project development, with demonstrable ownership — not peripheral contribution — of projects through the full certification cycle.
• At least 3 of those years in biochar or engineered carbon removal.
• Hands-on experience with at least one of Puro.earth, CSI (Global Artisan or Global Biochar C-Sink), Rainbow Standard or Isometric, and working familiarity with the others.
• You have designed at least one biochar project that was certified under a mainstream standard, and can describe the design decisions, the auditor's challenges and how they were resolved.
• You have taken a project from concept to issuance, including at least one audit you personally prepared and hosted, with credits actually issued on a registry.
• Direct experience with registries and VVBs: audit management, non-conformity closure, and negotiating methodology interpretation with a standard.
• Able to build a carbon quantification workbook and a techno-economic model from first principles, and to scope, review and challenge an LCA. Direct LCA practice (SimaPro, openLCA, Brightway or equivalent) is a strong advantage.
• Bachelor's or Master's degree in engineering, environmental science, energy, agronomy, chemistry or a related field.