ING issues second-ever own green bond
9 November 2018
ING announced today that we successfully issued a 12-year €1.5 billion and long 7-year $1.25 billion green bond, our second own green bond transaction.
The money raised will fund a green loan portfolio of new and existing loans in the categories renewable energy and green buildings.
While we often structure green bonds for clients, this is the second green bond ING has issued ourselves. The first was in November 2015, raising approximately €1.2 billion to fund sustainable projects while also aiming to accelerate the development of what was then a fledgling green bond market.
Now, more than a decade after it pioneered, the green bond market is on track to reach $210 billion this year, up $162 billion in 2017, according to research from the Climate Bonds Initiative. We structured 12 green bonds for our clients in 2017, with that number growing to 15 by the end of the third quarter of 2018 .
“It’s clear that investors are increasingly looking to use their portfolios to help fight the growing threat of climate change,” said Leonie Schreve. “We have to make an impact with our money and help investors be able to do the same.”
Biggest impact through our financing
ING is committed to better understanding the impact of our lending activities and working with our clients to drive progress towards a low-carbon and self-reliant society. We make our biggest contribution to a sustainable future through our financing, and have a clear set of objectives and targets to guide us.
For example, we announced in September that we’ll begin steering our €600 billion lending portfolio to align with the Paris Agreement’s well-below two-degree goal using an innovative measurement we co-created, called the Terra approach.
Our Responsible Finance portfolio encompasses our climate finance portfolio (funding for companies and sectors helping to keep global warming to below two degrees Celsius, our social impact portfolio, and our funding of industry ESG leaders. The green bond will be used to fund our climate finance portfolio.
Transparent reporting
The bond was pre-certified by the Climate Bonds Initiative. In addition, we’ll continue to transparently report around our green bond, building on the framework we put in place in 2015.
We intend to annually show the allocation and impact of the green bond proceeds to the ‘Eligible Green Loan Portfolio’ at least at the category level, and on an aggregated basis for all of ING’s green bonds and other potential green funding outstanding. You can read the 2018 Impact Report here.
The ING Green Bond Framework has been reviewed by ISS-oekom, one of the world’s leading rating agencies and an expert in the green bond market. You can read its Second Party Opinion here.
