Sustainability figures named in New Year's Honours list

Two former members of the Green Investment Bank’s management team are among the names on the Queen’s New Year Honours list for 2018.

Shaun Kingsbury, who served as Chief Executive of the Green Investment Bank, was nominated for a CBE, while Irene Adams, former Adviser to the Chair of the bank, has been given an OBE.

Both served on the management team of the investment bank following its establishment in 2012 to ensure funding for green infrastructure. As of March 2017 the GIB had invested in 100 projects, committing up to £3.4 billion of its own capital, and had attracted £8.6 billion of private capital, equating to around £2.50 for every £1 invested.

However, both left the organisation during the protracted privatisation process last year, which saw the government sell the bank to private investment firm the Macquarie Group, a sale the National Audit Office determined short-changed the government.  

Teresa Tennant, Co-Founder of the Jupiter Ecology Fund, which focuses on companies that provide solutions to environmental and social problems, was also given an OBE for services to sustainable investment.

Elsewhere in the resources industry, Dr Sally Uren, Chief Executive of Forum for the Future, was awarded an OBE for services to sustainability practice in business. Forum for the Future works with businesses to reimagine key systems in a sustainable manner and has helped create strategies including Marks & Spencer’s Plan A programme and Unilever’s Sustainable Living Plan. Last year the organisation launched two toolkits to accelerate the shift towards a circular economy.

Uren is currently directly involved in a number of projects including Net Positive, a coalition of seventeen leading businesses working to define the next wave of corporate sustainability and Cotton 2040, a multi-stakeholder collaboration designed to accelerate the mainstreaming of sustainable cotton.

Humbled and delighted to be in the #NewYearsHonours list with an OBE! Thank you to all of you who have been part of the journey in bringing the #sustainability conversation into the mainstream and the belief that together we can create a better future. We can.

— Sally Uren (@sallyuren) December 30, 2017

Tom Delay, Chief Executive of The Carbon Trust, which helps organisations benefit from carbon reduction, resource efficiency strategies and commercialising low carbon technologies, was given a CBE for services to sustainability in business, while Dr Elizabeth McDonnell, formerly Head of Biomass Electricity Policy at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) was awarded an OBE for services to bioenergy Policy.

The full list of New Year’s Honours can be found on the government’s website.