EVP – Sustainability and Transition — Water And Utilities Business

The mandate

A listed water-and-utilities business has public transition commitments, but project teams still evaluate energy, emissions, water resilience and community effects outside the main capital case. Several operating assets may be monetised, exposing uneven baselines and claims that cannot yet be traced to investment decisions. The board is establishing an EVP Sustainability and Transition to convert ambition into credible economics before buyers, lenders and regulators test it.

The portfolio comprises approximately S$24,700 million of projects and operating assets, with influence across 625 employees and material partners. The remit includes transition strategy, climate resilience, nature and resource governance, transition capital, disclosure controls, customer and community outcomes, and sustainability capability. Finance owns statutory reporting and operating leaders own plant performance. The EVP owns the integrity of transition choices and whether evidence connects target, intervention, cost and outcome.

Water systems make transition trade-offs unusually physical. Lower treatment emissions may depend on source quality, energy mix or process change; leakage reduction can compete with affordability and disruption; biosolids routes carry land, transport and regulatory implications. The EVP must prevent a single headline metric from displacing service reliability, public health or catchment consequence. Plans will express these relationships asset by asset.

Portfolio monetisation creates a second test. Improvement claims, future obligations, data rights, green-finance conditions and contingent expenditure must be intelligible to a new owner. The EVP will define which commitments remain with the seller, transfer with the asset or require contractual cooperation. A transaction narrative will not outrun the operating evidence.

Why this seat is open

This is a planned new appointment approved within the next operating model, not a replacement. A four-to-six-month search allows the executive to join before the next capital cycle and before transaction materials are finalised. Existing leaders retain their accountabilities until activation, while the board compares utilities, infrastructure and adjacent transition talent discreetly.

What you will own

• Establish asset-level transition pathways with costed operational dependencies.
• Embed climate, resource and community evidence into capital approval.
• Create controlled baselines for monetisation and external disclosure.
• Govern transition claims, taxonomies and assurance without greenwashing.
• Define transferred, retained and shared sustainability obligations.
• Build capability among plant, investment, finance and sustainability leaders.

The transition plan will begin with material sources rather than generic commitments. Energy intensity, process emissions, purchased power, network leakage, chemical use, sludge or biosolids, abstraction stress and physical climate exposure will be ranked by asset. Each pathway will show technical maturity, capital need, service constraint, regulatory dependency and residual risk. Offsets or certificates will be distinguished from operational reduction and used only within an approved hierarchy.

Capital governance will require an explicit counterfactual. Project sponsors must show expected resource and emissions performance, reliability effect, customer consequence and adaptability under plausible climate conditions. The EVP can return a case whose transition claim relies on an untested supplier guarantee or excludes lifecycle burden. Conversely, small interventions with repeatable operating value should not be crowded out by photogenic flagship projects.

Data controls will be built at source. Meter boundaries, estimation methods, conversion factors and asset ownership will be documented, with changes governed across finance and operations. The EVP will decide where independent assurance adds confidence and where better instrumentation is needed first. Acquirers should be able to reproduce material indicators from operational records rather than a manually assembled presentation.

Community and affordability outcomes will be treated as design inputs. Drought measures, tariff changes, construction disruption and service restrictions affect customers differently. The function will work with operations and public authorities to identify distributional effects, engagement commitments and remedy. Consultation will not be presented as consent, and unresolved community conditions will remain visible in investment and transaction papers.

The EVP will also shape buyer engagement. Management presentations and data rooms must distinguish historic performance, approved improvement, aspiration and contractual obligation. Green-finance or sustainability-linked instruments will be reconciled with transaction structure. If ownership change alters target feasibility, the board will receive a recommended reset before an external party identifies the inconsistency.

The first 12 months

Within 90 days, the EVP will verify baselines for the eight most material assets, identify unsupported claims and assess transition leadership. The board will receive capital conflicts, transaction evidence gaps and a prioritised assurance plan.

By month eight, three asset pathways should be approved with costed dependencies, two capital proposals should demonstrate integrated transition economics and the first monetisation data room should contain reproducible energy, water and climate evidence. A governance route for retained and transferred commitments will be operating.

At year-end, 90% of material portfolio indicators should have named data owners and documented controls, while forecast transition expenditure remains within 10% of approved plans. Two operational interventions must show verified resource or emissions improvement, and no transaction should suffer a material diligence qualification caused by an unlabelled sustainability assumption.

What the board will measure

• Transition capital connected to service and financial outcomes.
• Reliable baselines that withstand buyer and lender review.
• Honest distinction between reduction, avoidance and compensation.
• Clear accountability for obligations through ownership change.
• Strong transition judgement beyond the central sustainability team.

The person

You are an EVP Sustainability, transition director or infrastructure strategy leader with 18–22 years of experience. You have carried at least S$14,350 million of accountable portfolio and led a minimum of 450 people. Your evidence includes asset-level transition choices in water, utilities or another resource-intensive network and a transaction, financing or assurance process where claims received external scrutiny.

The board wants a practitioner who understands treatment and networks sufficiently to challenge models without displacing engineers. You should show a project you stopped or redesigned because the environmental thesis ignored reliability, affordability or lifecycle consequence. References must identify decisions personally attributable to you and outcomes sustained after the first reporting cycle.

The appointment is onsite in Singapore with travel to assets, authorities, lenders and prospective investors. It requires calm disclosure judgement and the ability to hold technical, financial and public-interest evidence together.

Compensation and terms

Base compensation is S$360,000–480,000 plus annual incentive. Assessment will cover pathway delivery, capital quality, evidence reliability, transaction readiness, stakeholder outcomes and succession. The final package will reflect confirmed scope and normal listed-company conditions.

Confidentiality

The organisation, assets, transition positions, investors and proposed disposals remain confidential. Further detail is shared only after qualification and an undertaking. Composite context and rounded values protect the client's identity.