Nordea sustainability expert: ‘We have to make sure everyone is with us’
Meet Catrine Birkevold Liem, Nordea Sustainable Finance Advisory’s country lead for Norway. She reflects on banks’ role in enabling a real sustainable transition, as well as challenges, trends and game changers in the field.
Green bonds are bonds where the money from the bonds are earmarked for green purposes such as financing renewable energy projects, electric vehicles or energy efficient building loans to consumers or businesses.
EU lawmakers have approved the final version of the European Green Bond Standard, the first-of-its-kind voluntary standard linked to the EU Taxonomy. We look at some of the challenges with the new regulation and how to overcome them.
'Blue bonds': New ICMA guidance aims to bolster credibility and activity
Blue bonds offer a financial mechanism to address pressing challenges relating to marine conservation and sustainable resource management. Practitioner’s guidance recently published by ICMA aims to support issuers, investors and underwriters interested in “blue” formats in order to catalyse investment in the sustainable marine economy.
A maturing Nordic sustainable bond market: lessons learned and expectations for the future
Sustainable bonds further solidified their position as a legitimate part of the global bond market during 2023. While we are seeing greater alignment in sustainable bond practices across regions, there is much to be learned from the Nordic market in particular.
Empowering our workforce: Nordea launches bespoke ESG training curriculum
Nordea’s Large Corporates & Institutions unit continues to invest in building the ESG expertise and skills of staff to help accelerate the transition. A new modular sustainability training programme allows employees to tailor the curriculum to their specific needs and roles.
Sustainable bond markets are again showing positive signs, with both global and Nordic sustainable bond volumes beating previous years during the first half of 2023. Nordic sustainable loan markets struggled in the interest rate environment of H1 2023, although Finland and Norway showed strong performance.
European Commission adopts European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS)
While many of the reporting areas initially proposed to be mandatory for corporates were diluted to voluntary before being adopted, the European Commission said it aimed to strike a balance between limiting the reporting burden on companies while enabling them to show their sustainability efforts.
Nordea continues to win top rankings in sustainable finance
Global Finance has once again recognised Nordea's sustainability leadership in its 2023 Sustainable Finance Awards. In addition to country wins for Denmark, Finland and Norway, Nordea was also named top bank for transition/sustainability-linked loans in all of Western Europe.
Beyond climate: Sustainability-linked loans embrace diverse targets
Loans linking borrowing costs to sustainability targets have surged in recent years. While sustainability-linked loans have tended to focus on climate-related goals, borrowers are increasingly going beyond climate to include social targets in their financing.
EU Taxonomy: The period of misalignment for sustainable finance
This year marks the most complete test yet on how well the proposed regulatory elements and labels from the European Commission’s action plan on sustainable finance will work together. In addition to providing transparency to the market, the EU Taxonomy is a cornerstone of the forthcoming European Green Bond Standard (EUGBS) as it provides the definitions of “green” for European Green Bonds.
A check-in on Nordic companies’ EU Taxonomy reporting
This year marked the inaugural year for companies in scope for EU Taxonomy reporting to disclose not only eligibility, but also EU Taxonomy alignment for the objectives included in the Climate Delegated Act. Nordea ESG Research shows that the alignment numbers are surprisingly low for Nordic companies.