Online articles

  • ASFI roadmap unites the financial sector

    Jacki Johnson and Simon O’Connor, co-chairs of the Australian Sustainable Finance Initiative, explain how the initiative’s roadmap, launched in November 2020, will bring together the finance sector to lead the drive for a more sustainable, resilient and prosperous Australia.
  • Australasian sustainable finance reaching the tipping point

    Sustainability can no longer be ignored by capital-market practitioners – according to participants at a February roundtable discussion hosted by KangaNews, Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Westpac Institutional Bank. Deal flow is likely to increase as a result, but the consequences are vastly wider and deeper.
  • Beyond labels, corporate engagement marches on

    If Australian corporate engagement with sustainable finance were measured by labelled green, social and sustainability bond issuance, progress remained underwhelming in 2020. However, issuers, investors and other market participants at the KangaNews Sustainable Debt Summit 2020 spoke of deepening commitments to environmental, social and governance risk mitigation.
  • Chain of influence

    Australia’s national modern-slavery reporting deadline is looming, on 31 March 2021. There are capital-market consequences, most notably that buy-side firms are taking steps to ensure they have appropriate modern-slavery risk controls in place.
  • Global ESG acceleration a rising tide for sustainable-debt product and practice

    The global sustainable-debt market has traditionally taken its lead from Europe but its innovations are increasingly being adopted globally. Susan Barron, global head of green and sustainable capital markets at Barclays in London, and Jake Hartmann, the bank’s Sydney-based director and head of debt capital markets, Australia and New Zealand, share a view on global developments and lessons for Australian borrowers...
  • Global sovereign survey makes compelling case for GSS issuance

    A new survey of sovereign borrowers that have issued green, social and sustainability (GSS) bonds suggests a strong rationale for joining the market. Issuers responding to the survey, which was published by Climate Bonds Initiative (CBI) on 15 January, say their GSS programmes were relatively quick to deliver, enhanced transparency, found new investors and – in many cases – cut the cost of borrowing.
  • New Zealand Sustainable Finance Forum – the year of action

    In November 2020, the New Zealand Sustainable Finance Forum unveiled its “roadmap for action” – a pathway to sustainability focused on the contribution that can, and must, be made by the financial system. Thus began the implementation phase. The forum’s new co-chairs, Bridget Coates and Ross Pennington, provide an exclusive update on the progress being made and the road ahead.
  • Sustainable finance in Australia: the bigger picture

    The KangaNews Sustainable Debt Summit 2020 migrated to an online format but this did not stop it attracting the widest range of speaker perspectives in its history. Delegates heard perspectives from across financial markets and also the whole economy, covering the urgent need for capital flows to shift to support a critical transition.
  • Taking a lead on New Zealand sustainable finance

    The KangaNews-Westpac New Zealand Sustainable Finance Summit 2020 took place in Auckland late in the year – its very format as an in-person event testimony to New Zealand’s world-leading performance in the COVID-19 pandemic. Market participants came together to talk about a sector, economy and world in a state of high-velocity flux.
  • The big renewal

    One of the most exciting aspects of sustainable finance from a capital-market perspective is the potential for the transition to a low-carbon economy to produce a huge supply of investible assets in a world that has been capex constrained. Westpac Institutional Bank is taking a lead position in Australia’s renewable-energy space – a key sector for investment growth.
  • The next frontier: green home loans in Australia

    Sustainable-finance development in Australia has tended to focus on the institutional sector. But a vast quantity of assets on bank balance sheets are residential mortgages, which to date have been almost untouched by environmental considerations. Clean Energy Finance Corporation and KangaNews gathered a group of market participants at the cutting edge of green home-loan development to discuss the product’s...
  • The sustainable-finance nexus

    Commonwealth Bank of Australia is turbocharging the sustainable-finance operation within its institutional business, including some key new hires and more to come. The team is focused on working with clients to gain deep understanding of their ESG risks and, from there, assisting with transition. The bank’s ambition is high.
  • Tying it all together – goals and commitments for 2021 and beyond

    The closing session at the KangaNews Sustainable Debt Summit 2020 brought together bankers who are leading market evolution in Australia and North America. The discussion covered the pace of change, targets for the future and hopes for measurable progress in sustainable finance.
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