Finance your sustainability strategy, accelerate your transition and create visibility of your security by displaying your SLB on LGX.
Sustainability-Linked Bonds (SLBs) are the latest addition to the universe of sustainable debt instruments and contribute to financing the issuer’s strategy towards achieving predefined sustainability objectives within a set timeline.
Unlike Green, Social and Sustainability Bonds, which are “Use-of-Proceeds” instruments, SLBs can be used to finance any corporate activity and their proceeds do not need to be allocated to specific projects. Yet, the issuer commits to reaching ambitious, science-based and measurable Sustainability Performance Targets (SPTs) around pre-determined KPIs, and to having these reviewed by an external party. A lot of the investor scrutiny around these products is placed at the level of the issuer’s strategy, namely the level of ambition and materiality of its SPTs/KPIs. Another core feature of SLBs is that the financial and/or structural characteristics of the bond can vary depending on whether the issuer achieves the predefined sustainability objectives. SLBs represent a source of financing for companies from any sector that set clear and ambitious science-based targets to become more sustainable.
A number of different standards, frameworks, taxonomies and labels are included in the LGX eligibility criteria:
In June 2020, the International Capital Market Association (ICMA) established its Sustainability-Linked Bond Principles (SLBP). The SLBP are voluntary guidelines that cover five core principles:
The LGX eligibility criteria are built on ICMA’s Sustainability-Linked Bond Principles and can be summarised as follows: