Remote Environmental Social Science Jobs in Silver Spring, MD

Opportunity track: SEA / GLOBAL / MENA-EE
Engagement: Contingent individual consultant; engagement may be direct or through an eligible U.S. consulting firm
Location: Remote — United States, with possible international travel
Primary promotion location: Washington, DC 20001
Anticipated consulting fee: $125–$250 per hour, or a negotiated fixed price by work package

Axyde is building a senior expert bench for anticipated U.S. government-funded project-scoping assignments involving mining, mineral processing, energy, utilities, transportation, digital infrastructure, smart cities, and other industrial or public infrastructure across the Indo-Pacific, Africa and the Middle East, Europe and Eurasia, Latin America, and other global markets.

The selected specialist will help Axyde identify material environmental, social, permitting, occupational-safety, climate, and natural-hazard risks early; determine whether credible mitigation pathways exist; assess potential cost, schedule, design, finance, and stakeholder implications; and define proportionate next-stage studies, technical assistance, or project-preparation work.

Assignments may begin with incomplete data and require rapid, independent, and defensible conclusions. Axyde welcomes specialists whose principal strength is environmental assessment, social performance, permitting, stakeholder engagement, climate resilience, natural hazards, occupational health and safety, or lender standards. Applicants are not expected to be equally expert in every discipline.

This is an early-stage project-screening and scoping role. It does not replace a legally required environmental and social impact assessment, permit application, engineering hazard analysis, formal lender due diligence, or determination by a competent government authority.

• Conduct proportionate environmental, social, climate, natural-hazard, and occupational-health-and-safety screening using available project and location information.
• Evaluate land use, water availability and quality, air emissions, greenhouse-gas emissions, biodiversity, ecosystem services, waste, hazardous materials, tailings, residues, noise, traffic, and cumulative-impact considerations.
• Assess labor and working conditions, worker safety, community health and safety, security arrangements, human rights, vulnerable groups, gender, Indigenous Peoples, cultural heritage, local livelihoods, and benefit-sharing considerations.
• Identify potential land-acquisition, economic or physical displacement, resettlement, consultation, grievance, stakeholder-engagement, and social-license requirements.
• Map environmental, construction, operating, sectoral, land, water, discharge, waste, heritage, and other potential permitting or licensing pathways at a project-scoping level.
• Assess exposure and vulnerability to flood, drought, extreme heat, wildfire, sea-level rise, storm surge, tropical cyclones, earthquakes, landslides, tsunamis, volcanic hazards, water stress, and other relevant acute or chronic hazards.
• Evaluate whether project concepts incorporate appropriate resilience, redundancy, adaptation, emergency-preparedness, business-continuity, closure, and long-term stewardship considerations.
• Review sponsor capacity, management systems, baseline-data availability, prior studies, stakeholder relationships, incident history, commitments, and proposed mitigation measures.
• Identify material fatal flaws, information gaps, mitigation requirements, specialized surveys, seasonal studies, consultations, cumulative assessments, and decision gates.
• Develop or review technical tasks, required qualifications, deliverables, schedules, and budgets for environmental and social impact assessments, management plans, permitting strategies, climate-risk studies, resilience assessments, technical assistance, and monitoring programs.
• Assess alignment at a screening level with applicable host-country requirements and relevant international lender, export-credit, development-finance, or industry expectations.
• Evaluate likely design, CAPEX, OPEX, schedule, financing, procurement, operations, closure, and reputation implications of identified risks and mitigation measures.
• Participate in sponsor interviews, technical-diligence calls, stakeholder-planning discussions, and occasional site visits involving project sponsors, host-country authorities, communities, financiers, engineers, and other specialists.
• Contribute to concept consultations, initial assessments, project reports, presentations, risk registers, mitigation recommendations, and monitoring indicators.
• Clearly distinguish source information, observed conditions, stakeholder statements, screening judgments, assumptions, limitations, and matters requiring field verification or formal determination.

• Degree in environmental science, environmental or civil engineering, ecology, social science, anthropology, geography, planning, occupational safety, climate science, resilience, or a closely related discipline.
• At least 10 years of directly relevant infrastructure, extractive-sector, industrial, environmental, social-performance, permitting, resilience, or due-diligence experience.
• Demonstrated experience conducting or independently reviewing early-stage environmental and social screening, impact assessment, permitting, lender due diligence, climate-risk assessment, natural-hazard assessment, or infrastructure-resilience work.
• Experience translating incomplete information into proportionate scopes of work, study plans, schedules, budgets, decision criteria, and risk-mitigation measures.
• Ability to identify material risks without presenting a desktop screening as a completed impact assessment, permitability determination, engineering certification, or stakeholder-consent process.
• Strong analytical writing, source evaluation, stakeholder-interview, and interdisciplinary collaboration skills, with the ability to work under compressed schedules.
• Contract-required status: The individual performing the work must be either a U.S. citizen or a lawful permanent resident of the United States (green-card holder). Other forms of U.S. work authorization do not satisfy the stated requirements of the anticipated contracts. A consultant engaged directly as an individual must maintain a principal place of business in the United States. A consultant proposed through a firm must be employed or engaged through an entity that independently satisfies the solicitation’s U.S.-firm requirements.

• Professional Engineer, Professional Geologist, Certified Environmental Professional, Certified Industrial Hygienist, safety credential, social-performance credential, or another directly applicable qualification.
• Experience with mining, mineral processing, tailings, power, oil and gas, LNG, hydrogen, geothermal, transportation, water, digital infrastructure, data centers, smart cities, or major industrial facilities.
• Familiarity with IFC Performance Standards, World Bank Environmental and Social Framework, Equator Principles, multilateral-development-bank safeguards, U.S. development-finance or export-credit requirements, or comparable frameworks.
• Experience addressing Indigenous Peoples, resettlement, biodiversity, critical habitat, labor, community health and safety, security, human rights, tailings, mine closure, or cumulative impacts.
• Experience with physical climate-risk analysis, disaster-risk reduction, natural-hazard screening, geospatial analysis, climate adaptation, or resilient-infrastructure planning.
• Experience preparing or independently reviewing impact-assessment, permitting, technical-assistance, resilience, management-plan, monitoring, or stakeholder-engagement scopes and budgets.
• Regional experience in Latin America, Europe and Eurasia, Africa and the Middle East, or the Indo-Pacific.

This is a contingent consulting opportunity, not an offer of full-time employment. No award, assignment, minimum number of hours, or minimum compensation is guaranteed. Engagement depends on contract award, assignment fit, eligibility, conflicts, availability, successful completion of Axyde’s due diligence, and agreement on scope and pricing. The stated fee range is an anticipated range; the final rate or fixed price will depend on experience, role, work-package requirements, and applicable cost-reasonableness requirements.

Some assignments may require rapid screening, interviews, irregular coordination across time zones, engagement planning, or international travel. Travel requirements, approvals, insurance, health and safety arrangements, information-access conditions, and reimbursable costs will be addressed in the applicable consulting agreement or work order.

Participation in a U.S. Trade and Development Agency project-scoping assignment may make the participating consultant or subcontracting entity ineligible to compete—whether as a prime contractor, subcontractor, or otherwise—for certain USTDA-funded follow-on activities resulting from that assignment, unless USTDA grants a waiver. Axyde will disclose the applicable restriction and obtain written acceptance before issuing a work order.

Selected specialists may be asked for written permission to include their name, qualifications, and resume in a proposal. Applying does not by itself authorize Axyde to represent that an applicant has committed to a proposal or assignment.

Work performed under an awarded contract will be subject to applicable confidentiality, data-rights, information-security, professional-responsibility, safeguarding, and conflict-of-interest requirements. Any proprietary assessment tools, licensed datasets, geospatial products, methodologies, or background intellectual property should be identified before an assignment begins.

Apply through Axyde’s online application form using the heading SEA/GLOBAL/MENA-EE – Environmental, Social, Permitting and Infrastructure Resilience Specialist. Please provide:

• A resume or CV of no more than three pages.
• Two or three concise, directly relevant project examples identifying your role, sector, jurisdiction, project stage, principal environmental, social, permitting, climate, safety, or resilience questions, and the resulting work product or decision.
• Your principal technical, sector, standards-framework, hazard, and regional areas of expertise.
• Your U.S. location, travel availability, availability during the anticipated performance period, and proposed hourly rate or fixed-price basis.
• A self-attestation that you are either a U.S. citizen or a lawful permanent resident and, if you would contract directly as an individual, that your principal place of business is in the United States. Applicants proposing engagement through a firm should identify the firm and confirm that it meets the applicable solicitation definition of a U.S. firm.
• Any relevant professional licenses, certifications, standards experience, field-safety qualifications, or language capabilities.
• Any known organizational conflicts, current client restrictions, prior work for relevant sponsors or financiers, or planned pursuits of potentially related USTDA-funded work.

Do not submit a passport, green card, Social Security number, personally identifiable information about project-affected people, confidential interview records, culturally sensitive information, precise locations of protected resources, proprietary reports or datasets, source-selection-sensitive information, or client-confidential material. Public, authorized, and appropriately anonymized project descriptions are sufficient for the initial application. Axyde will request only the documentation and information needed at the appropriate stage of selection and engagement.

Axyde considers qualified applicants without regard to any status protected by applicable law. The citizenship or permanent-residence limitation above applies solely to work covered by the stated U.S. government contract requirements.