Rebalance Earth has appointed former Federated Hermes head of investment Eoin Murray as its new chief investment officer.
He spent nine years at the firm before departing in February, and will now be part of Rebalance Earth’s plan to invest £10bn into nature restoration projects across the UK.
It does so by investing in Nature as a Service (NaaS) contracts, which are issued to encourage private investment to fix risks such as flooding, water quality, and biodiversity loss.
Rebalance Earth note that these contracts offer stable cashflows and uncorrelated, risk-adjusted returns, making them an attractive investment for pension funds. And with the UK facing an estimated £100bn nature deficit over the next decade, the firm is advocating for long-term asset owners to allocate at least 2% of their assets to these restorative projects.
Murray said: “Nature restoration is not just an environmental imperative – it’s a financial one. I look forward to working with Rebalance Earth to unlock nature’s full potential for the economy.”
These NaaS contracts not only have a positive environmental impact, but are “business-critical infrastructure,” according to Murray.
“We start by taking high value catchment areas at risk of flooding, drought, water quality issues and work backwards keeping the whole catchment in mind, to work out what nature to restore in order to solve these issues. We identify the risks, price the impact, generate a cashflow to mitigate the risks and create an investable asset.”
