REST awards responsible investment mandate to Calvert and Parametric for implementation partnership

Chris Briant

Rest, one of Australia’s largest profit-to-member industry super funds, has awarded an enhanced Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) mandate to Parametric Portfolio Associates LLC (Parametric) and Calvert Research and Management (Calvert) to provide further diversification to its Sustainable Growth ethical investment option.

Parametric and Calvert are part of Morgan Stanley Investment Management, the asset management division of Morgan Stanley.

Rest’s mandate to Parametric and Calvert will see it implement ethical and sustainable screens and tilts across its listed real assets portfolio, which includes global listed infrastructure, and global and Australian-listed REITs.

Andrew Lill, Rest’s Chief Investment Officer, said: “These additional sector mandates allow for further diversification for Rest members invested in Sustainable Growth, and also adhere to the option’s strict ethical and sustainability requirements. Adding listed real assets to the option’s existing unlisted property and infrastructure assets at this time is expected to provide further resilience in an inflationary environment.”

“Rest’s purpose is to help our members achieve their personal best retirement outcome. With Sustainable Growth, our aim is to provide our younger cohort of members with more choice in how their money is invested, while also delivering a high-performing growth option that outperforms both peers and the benchmark over the long run.”

“Rest supports actions for a better, fairer and more sustainable future, and we have a long-term objective and roadmap to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. Sustainable Growth is just one example of the actions we are taking, and provides an option for Rest members who regard ethical investment as a vital means to achieving their personal best.”

Anthony Eames, Calvert’s Director of Responsible Investment Strategy, said: “As a pioneer in Responsible Investing, we recognised decades ago that strong Environmental, Social and Governance practices can have positive implications for corporate performance. We look forward to working with Rest to deliver a highly customised investment solution reflecting Rest’s ESG priorities while leveraging Calvert’s proprietary insights.”

Chris Briant, Head of Australia and New Zealand, Parametric, added: “We are delighted that Rest has appointed Calvert to work towards enhancing its ESG investing credentials and Parametric as its implementation partner. This is due to our expertise in providing custom indexing solutions and reducing frictions like transaction costs, taxes, brokerage, foreign exchange costs and unintended exposures for super funds.”