Snippets: French province issues €119.5m green-SRI bond / S&P says we need bonds to finance renewables / EDHEC study says Solvency II will reduce lending to business / Greenland’s big melt

> French region Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur has issued a 12 year, AA-rated, €119.5m “socially responsible” bond with 75% of proceeds going to environmental projects (renewable energy, energy efficiency, transport) and 25% to social housing. The bond was significantly over-subscribed. Coupon is 3.6%; joint bookrunners were Crédit Agricole CIB (bravo Tanguy Claquin!) and HSBC France. Insurance companies made up 58% of investors, followed by asset managers at 33%. A third French, almost a third German, and the rest divided between Belgian and Dutch.

> I was interested to see this report of a speech at Rio+20 by S&P’s Regina Nunes – she says that financing needs of renewables over the coming 15 years will “exhaust the capacity of banks and utilities” and lead to the involvement of the capital markets, among others. However, “to date the small secondary debt markets and the absence of large volumes of liquid, investment-grade securities have limited the involvement of institutional investors in this sector.” Spot on! Read more.

> We’ve been worried for awhile about the EU’s proposed Solvency II regulations for the insurance industry – we see a significant negative impact on the availability of capital for climate change investments at exactly the time we need to ramp up those investments. A new report from France’s EDHEC business school agrees – in “The Impact of Solvency II on Bond Management” it says Solvency II is likely to cause a further contraction in the amount of capital available to small and mid-sized European companies. Read the Financial News story or Read the full report.

> A cheery Greenland story from NASA (via the Guardian): "Greenland ice sheet melted at unprecedented rate during July: Scientists at NASA admitted they thought satellite readings were a mistake after images showed 97% surface melt over four days." Follow the discussion on the implications of this and you’ll at least feel chilled again.