Yorkshire Water’s first sustainability bond makes it 100 for London Stock Exchange

Yorkshire Water last week issued the London Stock Exchange’s (LSE) 100th green, social and environmental bond when it launched its first sustainability bond.

The bond – a £350m 22-year issuance – was five times oversubscribed as investors placed bids to the value of £1.9bn. LSE said this was “a testament to Yorkshire Water's comprehensive sustainability framework”.

Liz Barber, director of finance and regulation at Yorkshire Water (pictured) said: ”Investors have responded very positively to our sustainable finance framework and the success of this issue confirms that we've taken the right approach. This is the first step in our plans to progressively move our debt portfolio into the framework and shows Yorkshire Water's commitment to embed sustainability across all our operations."

Yorkshire’s bond was also the first sterling denominated sustainability bond, and the first sustainability bond by a UK corporate issuer listed on the LSE.

Green and sustainability bonds are growing rapidly. The Exchange said 2018 was a record year, with 36 new green bonds listed collectively raising over £6.1bn, a 25% increase on 2017. As of 15 April 2019, £1.08bn of capital has been raised on LSE’s dedicated green bond segment this year. In total, £22.2 billion has been raised in 14 currencies from 38 issuers since launch of dedicated green segment in 2015.