Sustainable Finance Insights on Transition Finance, Sustainability-Linked Bonds, Sovereign Bonds and More

Hosts

• Nicholas Gandolfo, Director, Corporate Solutions
• Marika Stocker, Senior Manager, Corporate Solutions

In this episode, Nick and Marika discuss the bustling labeled bond market and its ongoing diversification in terms of the types of issuers, geographies, the use of proceeds and products. As the year rolls on, the sustainable finance market continues to produce strong volumes in terms of the number of transactions and their value. They also highlight developments around transition finance guidance as well as new and updated principles in the loan market. As always, they take a couple listener questions, this time focused on how bonds are labeled and the emergence of combined instruments.

Activity in the labeled sovereign bond market looks to be heating up for 2021. Several nations including Russia, Canada, Hungary, UK are considering issuing sustainable sovereign bonds. We’ll keep an eye on this space to see which countries come to market with green, social or sustainability sovereign bonds.

Transition Finance

More is being written about transition finance and whether sustainability-linked bonds (SLBs) have taken their place in the market. No doubt SLBs have come on strong, but we see diversification, especially with respect to product, as important for overall market health. Nick notes some of the challenges that could account for the low number of labeled transition finance thus far but anticipates that in time we will see more transition bond issuances. Nick also highlights two transition-focused reports worth checking out - The Transition Pathways Initiative’s annual ‘State of Transition’ and Natixis’ ‘Transition Tightrope’ series.

Continuing Momentum of SLBs

On the SLB front, the segment continues to grow. Transactions beget more transactions as borrowers and lenders gain confidence in the instrument. While some observers have doubted a handful of issuances due to questions around the materiality, relevance and ambitiousness of their sustainability performance targets and KPIs, the scrutiny is ultimately good and will raise the caliber of SLBs coming to market.

Key Moments

Links to Select Resources

• Transition Pathway Initiative: TPI State Transition 2021 Report
• Natixis: Brown Industries: The Transition Tightrope
• European Leveraged Finance Association (ELFA)/Loan Market Association (LMA): Guide to Company Adviser to ESG Disclosure in Leveraged Finance Transactions
• APLMA/LMA/LSTA: Social Loan Principles (new)
• APLMA/LMA/LSTA: Sustainability-Linked Loan Principles (updated)
• Science Based Targets:
• FedEx Sustainability Bond: Framework | Second-Party Opinion
• NAVER Sustainability Bond: Framework | Second-Party Opinion | News Release
• Berlin Hyp Sustainability-Linked Bond: Framework | Second-Party Opinion
• Environmental Finance: Amundi launches first ‘just transition’ climate fund