Environmental Finance's Sustainable Debt Awards 2025

CaixaBank's has won this year's Award for innovation - loan use of proceeds with its Green Guarantee Line to Acciona, a flexible guarantee line for green proceeds with a sub-limit dedicated to sustainable projects.

Environmental Finance judges praised Bpifrance for its "comprehensive range of green projects" as the winner of this year's Award for innovation - use of proceeds (green bond).

The Águas do Rio debenture issuance will be used to expand access to safe drinking water, reduce water losses, and enhance sewage collection and treatment services across 27 municipalities in the State of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.

Frozen vegetable supplier Grano Alimentos issued a BRL70 million ($14 million) social bond to help it purchase vegetables from family farmers vulnerable to extreme weather events in the Rio Grande do Sul region of Brazil.

Fedecrédito, a coalition network of financial intermediaries including credit unions, workers' banks and insurers, has won two awards at the Environmental Finance Sustainable Debt Awards

London Stock Exchange (LSE)'s work on sustainable finance accelerated in the last 12 months, including with the growth of its Sustainable Bond Market and hosting the Climate Investment Funds Capital Markets Mechanism (CCMM).

In July 2024, the International Finance Corporation provided BTG Pactual Timberland Investment Group with a $50 million loan package for its landmark timberland reforestation strategy in Latin America.

Berlin Hyp funding and investor relations head Bodo Winkler-Viti has secured the 'Personality of the year' award at the Environmental Finance Sustainable Debt Awards 2025 for his role as a "true pioneer" in sustainable debt markets for a decade.

During 2024, Barclays was involved in SLB deals which raised more than $9 billion in total - equivalent to almost a third of all the deals during the year by volume.

Bank of America can lay claim to being the leading underwriter in the US municipal sustainable bond market. In 2024 it said it executed 44 deals across all use-of-proceeds categories, totalling over $10 billion in par value.

BNP Paribas scooped four awards in this year's Sustainable Debt Awards, spanning sustainability bonds, green bonds and sustainability loans.

One of the reasons awarding sustainability-linked loan of the year for the corporate sub-category to Eiffel Investment Group was the consideration of Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions with social inclusion, the judges remarked.

For the third year running, Mizuho was named as the winner of the Lead manager of the Year, green bonds - local authority/municipality, and the fourth time in total.

Zurich has been named Investor of the year (asset owner) at this year's Sustainable Debt Awards.

"A leader in an underserved market," one judge remarked, securing Asia Pacific-focused private credit manager ADM Capital as Investor of the year (asset manager) for 2025.

French public development bank Sfil and its covered bond issuing subsidiary Caffil secured a pair of awards for their continued work to enhance its long-standing green, social and sustainable bond framework.

Dow Inc's $1.25 billion green bond was described by one of the awards judges as an "impressive inaugural green issuance by a hard-to-abate sector entity in the US.

Dubai-based logistics provider DP World has won the Green bond of the year - corporate (EMEA) award for its innovative $100 million blue bond issuance in December 2024.

The GAM Sustainable Climate Bond Fund secured the green bond fund of the year award after the innovative financial institution-focused labelled sustainable bond celebrated its third anniversary.

White & Case advised the Republic of El Salvador on the world's largest debt-for-nature conversion for river conservation and the world's largest debt-for-nature conversion in terms of the size of funding commitments for conservation.

MSCI's Glidepath Bond Indexes introduce a novel framework for reallocating cash flows within fixed income benchmarks, gradually increasing exposure to issuers aligned with greenhouse gas decarbonization targets, green revenues, or other sustainability criteria.

The launch of S&P Global Ratings' Climate Transition Assessment gave users the capacity to gauge an issuer's future pathway, adding to the provider's respected 'Shades of Green' second party opinion offering.

Ecuador scooped the green bond structure innovation award for its $1 billion debt-for-nature swap finalised in December, which was the largest ever deal of its type to date and the first to include terrestrial as well as marine conservation objectives.

Nuveen has been awarded Impact report of the year award for its Global Fixed Income Impact Report 2024, which was "well organised" and included a broad "mix of case studies to illustrate impactful projects", according to the award's judging panel.

Taking this year's Green project bond of the year award is AquaOne with Vietnam's first ever verified green project bond in the water sector. The bond is also the longest-tenor project bond issuance in Vietnam to date.

IDI Sao Mai was named as the winner of this year's Green bond of the year - corporate (APAC) for Asia's first aquaculture green bond and Vietnam's first local currency-denominated green bond by a non-financial corporate issuer.

Africa GreenCo won this year's Award for innovation - loan structure with one Sustainable Debt Awards judge, describing it as "a great way to unlock financing for independent power projects (IPPs) in this region".

The World Bank's landmark $225 million Amazon Reforestation-Linked Outcome Bond, which is the World Bank's largest outcome bond to-date, has been recognised in two categories in the 2025 Sustainable Debt Awards

Bolivia's first gender bond by a commercial bank specialising in financial inclusion - BancoSol - was highlighted by judges for this year's Award for innovation - bond structure in the social bond category.

Brazil-based cosmetics firm Natura has won the Sustainability-linked bond of the year - corporate award for its 'groundbreaking' BRL1.32 billion ($224.7 million) bond.

The $1 billion deal, which will see around $350 million invested into a conservation and restoration programme in the Río Lempa river, has won the sovereign sustainability bond of the year.

Citi scooped three awards this year, including Lead manager of the year, social bonds - sovereign, Lead manager of the year, sustainability bonds - financial institution and Social bond of the year - financial institution.

HSBC won three lead manager awards this year, with Sustainable Debt Awards judges describing the lender as a "strong contributor to the green bond market".

RBC was chosen by judges as the winner of this year's 'Lead manager of the year, social bonds - US muni bonds. The bank has been involved in a number of high-profile issuances during 2024.

NatWest emerged as the winner of two categories this year - Lead manager of the year, green bonds - sovereigns and Lead manager of the year, social bonds - financial institutions.

Australian health provider, Ramsay Health Care, refreshed and extended its sustainability-linked loans (SLL) impacting more than AUD1.7 billion ($1.1 billion) of financing facilities.

The Development Bank of Rwanda (BRD) brought its second sustainability-linked bond to market with an RWF33.5 billion ($23.4 million) offering.

Targeting its anti-poverty efforts the World Bank, last year, issued a $6.5 billion dual tranche sustainable development bond to support projects that promoting shared prosperity on a liveable planet.

Korea Housing Finance Corporation (KHFC) issued a €650 million ($740.6 million) social covered bond to increase housing supply finance for the country's low-to-moderate income households.

At €1.25 billion ($1.35 billion), the Council of Europe Development Bank (CEB) issued its largest syndicated Social Inclusion Bond (SIB) to date, last year.

Nomura acted as lead manager on 51 social bond transactions for supra, sub-sovereign and agency (SSA) issuers over the year for an aggregate amount of more than $12 billion.

"The need for energy in South Africa is critical, the largest hybrid energy plant is an essential step in helping this issue and can be a template for other African nations," commented one Environmental Finance Awards judge.

Bicycle producer Giant Manufacturing converted a $40 million revolving credit facility into a green loan, allocating the use of proceeds to clean transportation in its first-ever green financing.

Looking to address the difficulties MSMEs in Mexico's agricultural sector have accessing funds, four non-bank financial institutions partnered to participate in a pioneer public joint-issuance of $17.3 million under a Sustainable Bond Framework.

India's Vadodara Municipal Corporation issued a INR1 billion ($12 million) certified green municipal bond to develop two sewage treatment plants.

The government of Australia issued an inaugural green bond for $7 billion targeting its three green goals of climate change mitigation, climate change adaptation and improved environmental outcomes.

Winning this year's Green bond of the year - supranational was the Nordic Investment Bank (NIB), which issued its largest ever environmental bond at €750 million ($812 million) in 2024.

Barbados completed a BBD593 million loan ($300 million) sustainability-linked loan (SLL) for blue conservation.

Addressing solar components manufacturing Hanwha Q CELLS issued, through the National Finance Authority, $500 million in green bonds for the acquisition, construction, development, improvement, installation and equipping of two solar panel production facilities.

Exclusively focusing on biodiversity BBVA Colombia issued a $70 million green bond targeting nature conservation in the country with backing from the International Finance Corporation (IFC).

By refinancing $300 million of external commercial debt, The Bahamas is expecting to unlock $124 million in new cash funding for marine conservation over the next 15 years.

Brazil's first waste-to-energy plant will be funded by the BRL395 million green bond issued by Barueri Energia Renovável (URE Barueri).

Looking at decarbonisation of the Australian property sector real estate manager QIC converted AUD3.75 ($2.4 billion) of syndicated and bilateral bank facilities in its two largest funds to sustainability-linked loans (SSL).

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) provided a MXN$1.15 billion ($58 million) loan to Mexican homebuilder Vinte to acquire Javer, the country's largest provider of low and mid-income housing.

With specific targets for greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction and zero emission vehicles (ZEVs), Thailand became the first sovereign in Asia to issue a sustainability-linked bond (SLB), raising THB30 billion ($890 million).

Brazilian sanitation company Aegea issued a $300 million bond with dual sustainable and sustainability linked classification as well as environmental and social objectives.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government's first sustainability bond took this year's Sustainability bond of the year - local authority/municipality award.

After updating its Sustainable Financing Framework with additional green and social categories the Bank of Nova Scotia (Scotiabank) issued a CAD1.25 billion ($836 million) sustainability bond under it.

The Hong Kong Mortgage Corporation (HKMC) issued its second infrastructure loan-backed securities (ILBS) issuance, Bauhinia 2, raising $107 million in its sustainability tranche.

The first collaboration between the Latin American and Caribbean Development Bank (CAF) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) saw Banco Cooperativo Sicredi raise $297 million...

In February 2024, the Ministry of Finance (MOF) of Japan issued its landmark JPY799.5 billion ($5.3 billion) climate transition bond.