Questions & Answers about SEB Green Bonds

Find answers to your questions about SEB Green Bonds

  • What is an SEB Green Bond?
    A SEB Green Bond provides an opportunity to investors to invest in sustainable climate solutions supported by SEB by lending to climate friendly projects.
    The net proceeds from the issuance of a Green Bond will be used exclusively to finance or refinance SEB Eligible Green Loans (as defined below). All Eligible Projects will be used to promote the transition to a low carbon and climate resilient society.
  • Why does SEB issue Green Bonds?
    For SEB, sustainable business is important in order to create long-term value for our stakeholders, the society and SEB itself. For us, sustainable business is about:
    1. Sound processes
    In depth value analysis require prudent management and long term considerations.
    2. The Green Bond allows for a discussion around technology leadership, mission and vision and the way that technology trends, climate challenges and regulatory changes are managed. 
    3. Responsibility and transparency 
    We are open and transparent and accept responsibility, both as a creditor and an employer and believe finance need to participate actively in public challenges
    4. Infrastructure
    The Green Bond require a supporting infrastructure to 
    1) Define Green
    2) Select Green
    3) Verify Green
    4) Monitor Green and
    5) Communicate Green
    SEB has found that the installation of the quality control and management process required to issue a Green Bond, has secured a common understanding in SEB around our role and created a supporting platform.
    SEB aims to contribute to sustainability by highlighting economic values of sustainability – as said by one of our clients “climate considerations are not economic science, when we save CO2 it is often a reflection of reducing energy consumption or resources – when we save resources we save money”. The Green Bond enable us to focus this discussion.
    Furthermore, SEB aims to diversify its investor base through the issuance of Green Bonds.
  • Does SEB’s Green Bond set-up meet the requirements stated in the Green Bond Principles?
    Yes.
  • Has and independent review on SEB’s Green Bond Framework been made by external environmental experts?
    Yes, The CICERO lead ENSO has through IISD and CICERO performed a 2nd opinion.
    “Based on an overall assessment of the activities that will be financed by the green bonds, SEB’s Green Bond Framework gets the Dark Green shading.” 
    Meaning that the technologies financed and the management process SEB has in place to screen these projects are in line with UN’s climate goals for 2050.
  • What is Green to SEB?
    a. SEB has defined a list of eligible projects.
    b. Every asset included in the Green Loan pool need to be approved as a Green asset by SEBs environmental function (CSR).
  • What happens if an approved asset change characteristic and become ineligible?
    The asset will be removed from The Green pool.
  • How will SEB manage the Green assets
    SEB has established a Green profit centre to manage the Green loan pool. Alongside the Green profit centre’s, SEB Treasury operations will on a daily basis manage the Green asset and liabilities.
  • Is refinancing included in the Green Bond project portfolio?
    Yes, the net proceeds from the issuance of a Green Bond will be used exclusively to finance or refinance.
  • What happens if a Green Loan fails to achieve or maintain the certification on which base it was approved as a Green Loan? And what happens if a Green Loan is repaid or replaced?
    Should an SEB Eligible Green Loan become a Disqualified Loan or an SEB Eligible Green Loan is repaid or replaced, an amount equal to the funds disbursed under the Disqualified Loan will be added back to the SEB Green Bond Account to be used for a suitable new SEB Eligible Green Loan.
  • How will SEB secure access to green assets?
    1) SEB has identified a Green asset portfolio of SEK XX bn., which we can make an ongoing monitoring of. The assets represent Green lending in 2 of SEBs lending systems. We are currently including our other lending systems into the pool and expect this will have a significant impact on the overall assets.
    2) SEB Treasury operation will secure that the pool of Green assets will exceed the outstanding Green Bonds by XX% at the time of issuance.
    3) SEB has a clear strategy to continue increasing its Green lending.
  • How will SEB report on the use of proceeds? Will impact reporting be included?
    SEB will, at least annually, publish a green bond investor letter (each a “Green Bond Investor Letter”) on its website (www.SEB.se) that will contain (i) information on issued Green Bonds, (ii) a description of the allocation of proceeds for each category of SEB Eligible Green Loans (including project examples where customer approval for publication has been obtained) and (iii) the total amount of disbursed funds. SEB encourages its customers to perform impact reporting and intends to include details of such customer impact reporting in the Green Bond Investor Letter where applicable.
  • Will the use of proceeds be audited?
    SEB’s internal auditor will perform an audit of SEBs Green Bond process annually.
  • How does SEB work with sustainability questions in general?
    Read more about SEB’s sustainability policies here.

Green Bonds Q&A