Renewity adds leading consultant Bev Durston to Investment Committee
Renewity, the world’s first multi-manager devoted to investing in renewable energy, has announced the appointment of Bev Durston as an independent member of its Investment Committee.
Durston is a highly respected manager research professional with over 30 years of global investment experience. Having managed institutional monies for over 20 years, in 2013 she founded Edgehaven, a boutique institutional alternatives advisory business, with teams now based in Australia and the UK.
Her prior experience includes roles with the Queensland Superannuation Fund, the Australian Government Superannuation Fund, leading Australian industry fund Sunsuper, the Government of Singapore Sovereign Wealth Fund and managing British Airways Pensions’ alternatives portfolio.
Over the past 13 years, Durston has sourced, structured and implemented approximately US$4bn of Alternative investments across a broad range of strategies. In recent years, her focus has been on allocating to high-quality sustainable investments, including in renewables, alongside integrating ESG factors into manager selection and monitoring processes.
Renewity’s Investment Committee, which also includes CIO David Hunter, Chair Wendy Mayall and COO Ravi Neville, brings together internal and independent external experts to approve client and Fund objectives and the associated execution proposals from the Investment Team.
As well as governance and oversight responsibilities, it also provides further investing experience, insights and idea flow, ensuring Renewity’s clients access best-of-breed managers and opportunities across the renewables and broader sustainable assets universe.
David Hunter, Renewity CIO, commented: “Bev is one of the leading manager research professionals on the planet. She shares our passionate belief that multi-manager solutions help investors maximise their impact on the climate challenge and achieve compelling, attractive returns from renewables. Her extensive experience both across the broad sustainable asset opportunity set and as an international asset owner will be invaluable. This is the first in a number of exciting appointments we will be making over the coming months as we continue to strengthen the Renewity proposition and establish ourselves as the leading choice for investors looking to invest across the renewables value chain.”
Bev Durston commented: “I am delighted to be appointed to this role and excited to be contributing my years of experience in manager sourcing and structuring to such an innovative business. I am looking forward to creating sustainable, diversified, multi-manager solutions which can meet investors’ core needs in a simple, single arrangement. In what is a competitive, complex and growing asset class it will be great to work alongside David and the Renewity team to provide creative and resilient portfolios that meet investors’ objectives and produce excellent risk-adjusted returns.”
Renewity launched in March 2021 to rapidly scale renewable energy investing for institutional investors. Through its specialist multi-manager platform, advisory services and holistic approach, Renewity aims to distribute and deploy assets at scale and speed to accelerate the closing of the renewable energy funding gap.
Last week the firm announced it had launched a worldwide petition to encourage media organisations to present the carbon price alongside the main stock market indices in news broadcasts. People can show their support for the petition at https://www.change.org/p/abc-media-organizations-must-present-the-carbon-price-alongside-the-main-stock-market-indices (or http://chng.it/w2PYjygs) and follow the campaign online via #showthecarbon