
We are looking for a Finance Assistant
The HCV Network Secretariat is recruiting a Finance Assistant. Reporting to the Finance Manager, this position is an exciting opportunity to take on the day-to-day finance function and assist in the financial management of HCVN and help develop, maintain and improve our financial systems and controls in a period of growth.
Job Description: Finance Assistant
About the HCV Network
The HCV Network envisions a world where production to meet human needs conserves nature, benefits people, and respects their rights. The HCV Network provides practical tools to conserve nature and benefit people where commodities are produced, linking local actions with global sustainability targets and agreements such as the Global Biodiversity Framework and the Paris Agreement.
The HCV Network was founded in 2005 to set the standard for implementation of the HCV Approach, a science-based methodology to identify and protect six categories of High Conservation Values (HCVs) from the negative impacts of land-use change. Examples of HCVs are ecosystem services, rare, threatened, or endangered species, ecosystems, and the needs and livelihoods of indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs).
The protection of HCVs is required by more than 20 voluntary sustainability standards for commodity production, financial institutions (including some of the most important commercial banks), international aid agencies, and large corporations operating in the Forest, Land and Agriculture (FLAG) sector.
The HCV Network is a member-based organisation. Members include global social and environmental NGOs, producer and supply chain companies, technical service providers and voluntary sustainability standards who have a shared interest in ensuring the robust implementation of the HCV Approach to achieve benefits for nature, people, and climate in development contexts.
About the HCV Network Secretariat
The Secretariat runs the Network’s day-to-day operations. It is hosted by HCV Network Ltd., a private company limited by guarantee without share capital registered in England and Wales (company no. 9710578). The Secretariat team is multi-cultural and works remotely from different countries (Indonesia, Costa Rica, Argentina, the UK, Sweden, Netherlands, and France). The team leads the development of technical guidance and tools, provides quality assurance services and learning opportunities, and gives technical support to HCV Network Members and other users to ensure robust implementation of the methodology in all ecosystems, scales, and development contexts (forestry, agribusiness, other).
About the role
Reports to: Finance Manager
The HCV Network Secretariat is recruiting a Finance Assistant. This position is an exciting opportunity to take on the day-to-day finance function and assist in the financial management of HCVN and help develop, maintain and improve our financial systems and controls in a period of growth. The post will involve interacting with both internal and external staff and working with the Finance Manager to ensure a high level of operational delivery of financial duties. The role has development opportunities within the organisation.
Responsibilities
• Day-to-day bookkeeping on Xero
• Multi-currency bank reconciliations
• Issuing customer invoices and credit control
• Recording supplier invoices and setting up weekly payments for authorisation
• Managing the payroll process & pension administration
• Assisting with budget preparation and regular update of cash flow forecast
• Internal and external project and grant reporting
• Assisting with the preparation of monthly financial reports
Required
• Recognised accountancy qualification and member of professional body.
• Preferably 2 years’ relevant experience
• Excellent project management skills (time-management, problem-solving and organisational abilities).
• Excellent Excel skills and general knowledge of other Microsoft Office products, Xero Accounting software and teleconference software.
• Discretion in handling confidential information
• Fluency in English.
• Ability to work remotely in a global team working in different time zones.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Highly developed interpersonal and team working skills, as well as ability to operate in a multi-cultural environment.
Desirable
• Experience working in not-for-profit sector.
Benefits
• Up to 30 days’ annual leave (pro rata)
• Professional development support
• Home Office supplies
• Working from home allowance
• Flexible working
Location
United Kingdom, preferably Oxford-based (remote). Applicants must have the right to work in the UK.
Hours of work
Part-time (24 hours per week)
Employer
HCV Network Ltd.
Contract type
Permanent (3 months’ probation)
Salary
Commensurate with skills and experience.
How to apply?
Please send a 1-page cover letter explaining your suitability for the position and your CV in English to secretariat@hcvnetwork.org by Friday 5 Jan 2024. Applications that do not meet these requirements will not be considered.
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Alongside many global initiatives, our work with partners promotespractices that help meet the global Sustainable Development Goalsand build a greener, fairer, better world by 2030.


Femexpalma
In April 2022, FEMEXPALMA and the HCV Network signed a 5-year cooperation agreement to promote sustainable production of palm oil in Mexico. FEMEXPALMA is a Mexican independent entity that represents palm production at the national level and promotes the increase of productivity in a sustainable way.
With global markets becoming stricter, for Mexican producers to be able to export to key markets such as the European Union, they must meet strict requirements such as certification by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). To be certified by RSPO, the HCV Approach must be applied prior to the establishment of any new oil palm plantations. With this cooperation agreement, the HCV Network will support FEMEXPALMA’s members and allies to design better strategies to identify, manage and monitor High Conservation Values and support smallholders to achieve RSPO certification and implement good agricultural practices.


High Carbon Stock Approach
The High Carbon Stock Approach (HCSA) is an integrated conservation land use planning tool to distinguish forest areas in the humid tropics for conservation, while ensuring local peoples’ rights and livelihoods are respected.
In September 2020, HCV Network and the HCSA Steering Group signed a five-year Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to strengthen their collaboration to conserve forests and uphold community rights in tropical forests. The HCS and HCV Approaches are cornerstones of corporate no deforestation and conservation commitments, and increasingly for actors working at different scales. The collaboration aims to further support effective implementation of these commitments through increased uptake of the HCV and HCS tools.
Through this MoU, HCSA and HCVRN are pursuing two main strategic goals:
- Strive to promote the application of the two approaches in tropical moist forest landscapes and explore further opportunities for collaboration.
- Ensure that, where the two approaches are applied together, this happens in a coordinated, robust, credible, and efficient manner, so that HCS forests and HCVs are conserved, and local peoples’ rights are respected.


World Benchmarking Alliance
From May 2022, the HCV Network is an ally at the World Benchmarking Alliance (WBA). WBA is building a diverse and inclusive movement of global actors committed to using benchmarks to incentivise, measure, and monitor corporate performance on the SDGs, and will assess and rank the performance of 2,000 of the world’s most influential companies against seven systems of transformation by 2023.
The scope of WBA’s circular transformation was expanded to cover nature and biodiversity as recognition of the need for greater understanding, transparency and accountability of business impact on our environment. The WBA Nature Benchmark was launched in April 2022, which will be used to rank keystone companies on their efforts to protect our environment and its biodiversity. As HCV Areas are recognised as key areas important for biodiversity, companies that publicly disclose their actions to identify and protect HCVs will contribute to the assessment of their performance against the benchmark.


Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures - TNFD
The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) is a global, market-led initiative, established with the mission to develop and deliver a risk management and disclosure framework for organizations to report and act on evolving nature-related risks, with the aim of supporting a shift in global financial flows away from nature-negative outcomes and toward nature-positive outcomes.
In April 2022, the HCV Network joined the TNFD Forum. The TNFD Forum, composed of over 400 members, is a world-wide and multi-disciplinary consultative network of institutional supporters who share the vision and mission of the task force.
By participating in the Forum, the HCV Network contributes to the work and mission of the taskforce and help co-create the TNFD Framework which aims to provide recommendations and advice on nature-related risks and opportunities relevant to a wide range of market participants, including investors, analysts, corporate executives and boards, regulators, stock exchanges and accounting firms.


Aquaculture Stewardship Council
The Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) is the world’s leading certification scheme for farmed seafood – known as aquaculture – and the ASC label only appears on food from farms that have been independently assessed and certified as being environmentally and socially responsible. In 2021, the HCV Network and ASC formalised their collaboration through a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). The MoU represents the first step in a fruitful relationship aimed at conserving HCVs in aquaculture. Although, existing guidance on the use of the HCV Approach currently focuses mainly on forestry and agriculture, the HCV Approach is however generic, and in principle also applicable to aquatic production systems. Through this MoU, this is recognised by the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) in their ASC farm standard, in which the protection of HCV areas is mentioned in the context of expansion


Accountability Framework Initiative
The Accountability Framework initiative (AFi) is a collaborative effort to build and scale up ethical supply chains for agricultural and forestry products. Led by a diverse global coalition of environmental and human rights organizations, the AFi works to create a “new normal” where commodity production and trade are fully protective of natural ecosystems and human rights. To pursue this goal, the coalition supports companies and other stakeholders in setting strong supply chain goals, taking effective action, and tracking progress to create clear accountability and incentivize rapid improvement. In July 2022, the HCV Network joined AFi as a Supporting Partner. AFi Supporting Partners extend the reach and positive impact of the AFi by promoting use of the Accountability Framework by companies, industry groups, financial institutions, governments, and other sustainability initiatives, both globally and in commodity-producing countries.


Biodiversity Credit Alliance
The Biodiversity Credit Alliance (BCA) is a global multi-disciplinary advisory group formed in late 2022. Its mission is to bring clarity and guidance on the formulation of a credible and scalable biodiversity credit market under global biodiversity credit principles. Under these principles, the BCA seeks to mobilize financial flows towards biodiversity custodians while recognising local knowledge and contexts.
The HCVN joined the BCA Forum in August 2023 to learn more from the many organizations already coming together to find effective pathways to opening up credit-based approaches, and how to contribute our knowledge and experience of years of working in a practical way, often with global sustainability standards and their certified producers, to protect what matters most to nature and people.
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Nature Positive Forum

Get Involved
Our Mission as a network is to provide practical tools to conserve nature and benefit people, linking local actions with global sustainability targets.
We welcome the participation of organisations that share our vision and mission to protect and enhance High ConservationValues and the vital services they provide for people and nature. By collaborating with the Network, your organisation can contribute to safeguarding HCVs while gaining valuable insights and connections that support your sustainability goals.
We are seeking collaborative partners to help expand and enhance our work, as well as talented professionals who can join the growing Secretariat team, and for professionals who can contribute to the credible identification of High Conservation Values globally.
Join us in securing the world’s HCVs and shaping a sustainable future.