Swedish construction company Skanska last week issued their first green bond at SEK850 million. The use of proceeds will be ‘exclusively allocated towards investments in green commercial property development’. Swedish bank SEB was sole bookrunner.
Skanska say they've done the bond to diversify their investor base. The company isn't rated, but Handelsbanken gives it an indicated rating of BBB.
Skanska, according to Environment-Finance, built London’s landmark Gherkin building and is involved in the restoration of the Ground Zero site in New York. It’s the second Swedish corporate to issue a green property bond; Vasakronan has now done two of them. France's Unibail-Rodamco kicked off the green property sub-theme in February with a EUR750 million green bond.
The bond's green credentials have been reviewed by the Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research (CICERO), but their report is not publicly available (or at least not yet - keep asking folks). So we're not sure what benchmarks they used to evaluate the 'greenness' of their property or what standards and metrics they're using (Vasakronan and Unibail-Rodamco used BREEAM and LEED). Transparency is useful, especially in tricky areas like energy efficiency in buildings.
We're hoping to get more info on the bond in coming days.
