Nordea – now offering green financing to small and medium sized corporates in Sweden

Nordea is now offering green financing to small and medium sized corporates in Sweden – financing that promotes sustainable investments. This way, small and medium-sized corporate customers will now be able to level up their sustainability work. 

Green bonds have been available for a while, especially for large real estate companies. Nordea is now – as the first player in the market – also offering green financing to small and medium-sized companies in several different industries. 

- We have over half a million small and medium-sized corporations as customers. We are in constant dialogue with our customers and sustainability is a topic that is often raised.  This indicates that the demand for products such as green loans is high and will continue to increase, says Magnus Montan, Head of Business Banking. 

The whole value chain is sustainable; the product is based on green market funding and the customer commits to using the financing for a sustainable investment, which requires them to report the positive impact from the investment on power or water consumption, for example. This means that both the investment and financing will be sustainable. Examples of sustainable investments are energy-efficient buildings, wind power, pure water treatment and sun power. 

The customers qualifying for the green financing will also get slightly more favourable commercial terms compared to non-sustainable financing. 

Positive environmental impact 

This type of green loans can have a positive impact on the environment. When it comes to real estate, buildings must be at least 25% more energy efficient than the Swedish building regulations (BBR) for new productions. Nordea will also provide financing for investments in renewable energy, which have an even stronger positive effect on reducing emissions.  

- We believe that green financing is here to stay and will be established as a market standard in future. We do also believe that our own credit portfolio will grow stronger since the most sustainable companies are the winners of tomorrow – something studies already show, says Magnus Montan. 

First an internal investigation will examine if the loan can be classified as green. Then follows an external investigation where well-established environmental certificates are used, which are approved by Oekom Resarch, the independent Second Party Opinion provider of Nordea’s framework for green bonds.