Europe has historically dominated sustainable bond issuance, and 2024 was no different. The region is projected to issue $465 billion of sustainable bonds this year, a gain of 1% over the previous year, and well ahead of second-place Asia-Pacific and third-place North America, $238 billion and $124 billion respectively, according to Moody’s Ratings.
That said, that activity in impact bonds (sometimes called “GSS+” bonds: green, social, sustainability, etc., sustainability-linked instruments) was “sharply lower than the record $594 billion logged in 2021,” the bond-rating agency notes. However, many expect the EU’s new Green Bond Regulation to boost green bond issuance eventually.
“The implementation of the voluntary European green bond standard in December 2024 may support growth over time as existing issuers redraft their frameworks,” Moody’s posted on its website, “but we expect uptake to be modest at first as issuers navigate a new regulatory paradigm.”
Green bonds account for about two-thirds of Western Europe’s sustainable bond issuance, led by Germany ($63 billion in the first nine months of 2024) and France ($41 billion).
Elsewhere, EU countries will need to ramp up their investment in energy storage this year, as price volatility has increased massively. This is “putting huge strain on grids, developers of renewable energy, and power consumers,” says Gregor Vulturius, lead scientist and senior adviser on climate and sustainable finance at SEB.
Moody’s predicts that Europe will continue to lead sustainable finance in 2025, as it has every year since 2017, but any gains are likely to be single digits at best.
Societe Generale
Best Bank for Sustainable Finance
Best Impact Investing Solution
Best Bank for Sustainable Financing in Emerging Markets
Best Bank for Sustainable Bonds
A perennial top-10 sustainable bond bookrunner, Societe Generale (SocGen) made a mark in impact investing in July 2024 when it announced it was acquiring a majority stake in Reed Management. This asset management company supports equity investments in emerging leaders of the energy transition. SocGen has committed to investing €250 million ($259 million) as an anchor investor in the inaugural fund.
SocGen further burnished its credentials as a sustainable finance innovator in 2024. It helped create for Dutch-Belgian grocery retailer Ahold Delhaize a unique bond structure with elements of conventional, green, and sustainability-linked bonds to help curb that company’s Scope 3 emissions—those problematic direct and indirect emissions occurring all the way down its value chain. The €1.6 billion bond issued in March 2024, included a €400 million two-year floating-rate tranche, a €500 million seven-year green tranche, and a €700 million 12-year sustainability-linked tranche—the last tranche dealing with Scope 3 emissions as well as Scope 1 and Scope 2 gases. SocGen was the deal’s joint structuring bank.
The bank continues to develop sustainable finance solutions for emerging markets. It had four sustainable bond offerings in Uzbekistan alone in 2024, including a $400 million sustainable bond for Uzpromstroybank and a $400 million green bond for Agrobank, the first green bond ever from a financial institution out of the Commonwealth of Independent States.
Nordea
Sustainable Finance Deal of the Year
Circular Economy Commitment Award
Best Bank for Green Bonds
Best Bank for Transition/Sustainability-Linked Loans
As noted in the global awards section, Nordea was the sole sustainability structuring adviser in Finnish company Valmet’s inaugural €200 million green bond offering. Valmet supplies technologies, automation, and services to the pulp, paper, and energy industries. The bond’s proceeds will support Valmet’s clients in their efforts at decarbonization and circular economy in the hard-to-abate pulp and paper manufacturing sector.
A sustainable finance innovator, Nordea remains the largest issuer of sustainability-linked loan bonds, (SLLBs), which it pioneered in 2022. SLLBs use standard use-of-proceeds bonds to fund portfolios of sustainability-linked loans, combining aspects of sustainable bonds and loans. The bank issued its third SLLB in the third quarter of 2024.
Nordea is the Nordic region’s top purveyor of sustainable loans, maintaining a 15.4% market share in the four quarters through the third quarter of 2024. Green loans were particularly strong during this period, increasing 13% over 2023.
More than most, Nordea is aware of the challenges of building a circular economy based on reducing, reusing, and recycling materials. One key problem is that the cost of extracting virgin materials is often much lower than the cost of recycling used materials. Thus, “the circular solutions must be economically sustainable to initiate the transition to a circular economy,” says Thina Saltvedt, chief analyst in Nordea’s Group Sustainability division.
ING
Best Bank for Sustainable Infrastructure/Project Finance
Best Bank for ESG-Related Loans
ING backs sustainable infrastructure projects worldwide; but in 2024, southern Germany hosted a different kind of geothermal project. ING was the sole sustainability coordinator for a €131.6 million green loan to Eavor Erdwarme Geretsried, which implemented a project that does not pump subterranean water to the surface to capture heat, as with conventional geothermal projects.
Instead, underground loops resembling giant underground radiators are created at a depth of around 3 miles and then filled with fluid. The underground rock heats the liquid that rises to the surface solely due to the temperature difference. This requires no further energy input and reduces operating costs, and it can be directly used for district heating and power generation.
The bank was a global top-15 ESG-related lender in 2024, according to LSEG. ING was also the sole sustainability coordinator for a €674 million green revolving credit facility (RCF) for Recurrent Energy, a solar power and energy storage project developer. The RCF will support the building out of roughly 1 gigawatt of solar storage capacity. The bank also acted as sole green adviser for Eurostar Group’s €650 million green loan with a €100 green revolving credit facility in April 2024. The high-speed train operator’s loan is the first refinancing with a “green pure player” structure in the European transport sector.
CaixaBank
Best Bank for Social Bonds
Best Bank for Sustaining Communities
In September 2024, CaixaBank closed its sixth social bond issue, for a total €1.25 billion, with demand exceeding €4.7 billion. Proceeds are to finance activities to fight poverty and foster economic and social development in some of the most disadvantaged areas of Spain. This issue marks the first time CaixaBank has identified eligible projects focused on “gender equality, inequality reduction, and social housing.”
Since the publication in 2020 of the UN’s framework for issuing bonds linked to its Sustainable Development Goals, CaixaBank has become a leader in bond issuances based on ESG criteria in Europe, with 14 issuances: eight green bonds and six social bonds, totaling €13.3 billion.
As Europe’s leading provider of microcredits, the bank strongly supports local communities. Caixa’s social bank, called MicroBank, issued more than 175,000 microcredits in the first nine months of 2024, helping to create an estimated 27,000 jobs. The bank also provides social financing to the public sector, like its 2024 loan to the community of Madrid to finance projects linked to affordable housing, education, health, and social and economic inclusion.
LGT
Best Bank for Sustainability Transparency
A leader in alternative investing, LGT began embedding sustainability-oriented clauses in its investment programs decades ago. The Liechtenstein-based private bank specifically publishes the extent to which its investments meet sustainability criteria.
The bank uses key criteria to assess a company’s sustainability rating: whether there are any negative issues or news related to the company, how sustainably the company runs its business, and an assessment of the environmental and social impacts of its offerings. For instance, it might look at the greenhouse gas emissions of the restaurant chain McDonald’s and its labor conditions. In 2024, LGT launched a new share class for its most extensive core investing offering, Princely Strategy or Global Investable Markets, which takes the additional step of purchasing carbon credits.
| Regional Winners: Western Europe | |
|---|---|
| Best Bank for Sustainable Finance | Societe Generale |
| Sustainable Finance Deal of the Year | Nordea (Valmet’s inaugural $205M green bond) |
| Best Impact Investing Solution | Societe Generale |
| Circular Economy Comittment Award | Nordea |
| Best Bank for Sustainable Infrastructure/Project Finance |
ING |
| Best Bank for Sustainable Financing in Emerging Markets |
Societe Generale |
| Best Bank for Green Bonds | Nordea |
| Best Bank for Social Bonds | CaixaBank |
| Best Bank for Sustainable Bonds | Societe Generale |
| Best Bank for Sustaining Communities | CaixaBank |
| Best Bank for ESG-Related Loans | ING |
