Sustainability is at the heart of our entire business. So naturally, our financing is also connected to our work on sustainability.
We issued our first green bond in 2015. At the time, it was the largest green bond to have been issued in Sweden, although it represented only a small proportion of our total financing. Today, almost 80 per cent of our bond portfolio is made up of green bonds and we have established sustainability criteria linked to our loan financing.
We believe that it should be easier to finance sustainable rather than unsustainable activities and we are happy to contribute to the development of green forms of financing. From having been a niche area just a few years ago, today green bonds have come to dominate the Swedish market, often offering better terms than conventional loan financing. This is a significant change that we are proud to be part of.
For us, the value of sustainable financing is two-fold. Firstly, it is a key way to finance vital investments to develop Stockholm’s energy system and making our operations climate-positive. Secondly, it gives us additional incentives to consistently make sustainable choices.
For green financing to be genuinely sustainable, it needs to stand up to scrutiny. Every year, we publish a report in which we provide details of the impact of our green bonds, broken down by individual investment. In the 2021 report, for example, you can learn that investors who participated in our green bond issuances under the current framework contributed to reducing emissions by 30 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents per million Swedish kronor invested.
In March 2021, we took the next step on this journey by renegotiating terms for our long-term loan facility of SEK 3 billion. The annual interest rate can be adjusted 2.5 base points up or down based on four sustainability criteria related to our performance against pre-defined indicators, including:
