Financing a sustainable future

At ANZ, we’re committed to helping our customers make the transition to net-zero carbon.

We understand in the modern world, doing the right thing by the environment is a critical part of doing business in all sectors of the economy - for ANZ, our partners and our customers. We know this is how business will be conducted in the future if we want to remain successful and resilient.

And we support this claim with our actions – at the close of the first half of the bank year, ANZ has completed 62 per cent of its $A50 billion sustainable funding and facilitation commitment by 2025.

That’s why we’re so pleased to be named the best bank for ESG and sustainable finance 2022 at the annual Australian Corporate Treasury Association (ACTA) awards, based on the recent large corporate relationship banking study conducted by Peter Lee Associates.  

It’s fantastic reward for the efforts of our Australian team, and indeed, our dedicated sustainable finance staff globally, including in New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, and London.

Ongoing

The Peter Lee Associates survey is a leading indicator of performance across wholesale banking in Australia, with many large corporate institutions surveyed.

And while we’re pleased with the recognition, we won’t stop there. We’re continuing to invest in our offerings, and our partnerships, in order to give our customers a market-leading experience.

There’s no better example of this than our recent strategic partnership with Pollination, which will allow customers to take advantage of robust, innovative solutions to accelerate net zero in the Asia Pacific.

Through this partnership, we want to play a role in helping to build the next generation of sustainable finance - achieving levels of innovation, integrity and scale which would be unreachable without the strategic partnership.

We’re also working with our partners Qantas and INPEX on a project focussing on carbon farming and renewable biofuels in Western Australia’s wheatbelt region.

The project aims to provide an opportunity to support reforestation and decarbonisation.

Scope

Even amid the difficult conditions seen across markets so far in 2022, it’s clear strong demand for sustainable finance will continue. Businesses are looking to pair their funding approach with increasingly critical sustainability strategies.

Data for the first three months of 2022 show sustainable finance volumes remained fairly resilient, despite investor caution on the back of rising interest rates geopolitical factors.

Activity across sustainable bonds and loans came in at $US348 billion, the second-highest first quarter issuance on record, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

Bond transactions made up 75 per cent of the figure. According to Moody’s, sustainable bond issuance could grow make up 15 per cent of total bond issuance by the end of 2022.

The first-quarter market performance brings the total current sustainable debt issuance globally to over $US4.5 trillion.

At ANZ, we know this is just the start. As fund managers increasingly manage ESG mandates, demand in this space will only grow.

And as the best bank in the space, according to our ACTA award, we’ll be here to help our customers take full advantage.

Katharine Tapley is Head of Sustainable Finance at ANZ