Circular Cities and Regions Internship - Spring 2025

Intern / Student, Full or part-time · Amsterdam

About Metabolic

Metabolic’s mission is to transition the global economy to a fundamentally sustainable state. We advise governments, businesses, and NGOs on how to adapt to a fast-changing global context. Combining systems thinking and data science, we map and understand local and global systems to assess where to intervene and develop solutions that can dramatically shift how the economy functions.

We are an international and dynamic team of around 100 people who share an ambition for catalyzing a sustainable future. Based in the Netherlands, we work at the cutting edge of sustainability initiatives for a broad range of global clients.

About the Role

Metabolic’s Cities & Regions team focuses on supporting national governments, municipalities, global NGOs, and local entities in transitioning to become more resilient. We do so by transforming and regenerating the urban environment into a fundamentally sustainable state where humans, nature and energy are part of a balanced holistic system.

Through our Urban Diagnosis we identify cities and regions weakspots and link them to solutions that have been proven efficient by experience. This scientific or “medical” approach helps us to quickly connect an urban challenge or an early stage problem with an intervention methodology that will yield efficient and adapted solutions.

Working with cities & regions globally and locally, we leverage our integral circular approach that may involve creating an overview of the material flows and identifying insights in a sector, using GIS as a tool for sustainable spatial mapping for city analysis, co-developing circular strategies and implementation roadmaps and/or monitoring the performance and results of an urban strategy.

As a consulting intern, you will work within the consulting team and receive as much responsibility as you're interested in taking on. The role is primarily focused on performing research and analysis to support our team. You will get the opportunity to discover what working as a sustainability consultant entails and be able to experience project work for large organizations up close. Your work can stretch to include many other parts of consulting (e.g. building presentation, hosting workshops, meeting with clients), depending on your personal development goals.

The internship starts in September 2024, and should last for five to six months. It requires four to five days of work per week. This internship provides a stipend amounting to €877.59/month pro-rata (based on 40 hours per week).


Your profile

We are looking for someone with the following qualifications:

  • Enrolled in Industrial ecology, Geo-Information Science, Spatial Planning, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Management, Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, Architecture, Urban Systems Engineering or equivalent (at least until March 2025 - please mention your expected graduation date in your CV)

  • Desired skills/experience/knowledge:

    • Cities, urban planning, policy and/or strategy

    • Circular economy principles

    • Affinity with/is interested in calculating business cases for sustainable interventions

    • Ideally skilled in spatial analysis (GIS or Python)

    • Workshops and stakeholder management

  • Research experience (i.e., via a university degree or work experience)

  • Strong written and spoken communication skills (English)

  • Ideally with fluency in Dutch (written and spoken)

  • The ability to work independently

  • Enjoys fast-paced environments and adapting to uncertainty

  • Strong attention to detail, accuracy, and organization

  • Great team working skills

  • Self-awareness of personal career development goals

About us
Metabolic’s mission is to transition the global economy to a fundamentally sustainable state. We advise governments, businesses, and NGOs on how to adapt to a fast-changing global context. Combining systems thinking and data science, we map and understand local and global systems to assess where to intervene and develop solutions that can dramatically shift how the economy functions.
We are looking forward to hearing from you!
Thank you for your interest working for Metabolic. Please fill out the following short application form. Should you have any difficulties please contact us via HR@metabolic.nl
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