JENKINS Impact is the first question we are asked – what impact reporting are you doing and how are you doing it. If you look at the green-bond market as the precursor to where we are now, it has taken a while for the market to land on a common metric.

It was led by the work the supranational, sovereign and agency issuers did a couple of years ago around developing a harmonised framework for impact reporting.

The Climate Bonds Initiative (CBI) has been very good at articulating these measures into benchmarks that allow them to give technical rigour around their standards. This gives us comfort because when we talk to investors we can say low-carbon transport in Sydney or Melbourne is aiding the journey to a two-degree climate-change world by 2050 and here’s the proof – it’s around reducing the emissions footprint over time via modal shift and transitioning to a lower carbon-generation mix.

When it comes to social bonds there’s an understanding that it’s far less evolved because there is such a range of investments or projects – there’s not a single, uniform metric. Over time, as each issuer brings another deal to market impact-measurement standards will evolve and look at precedents elsewhere.

CHEN There are so many different ways of measuring impact. The challenge is to find a common approach that everyone signs up to. ‘Green’ is easier to articulate. Westpac Banking Corporation is the only Australian bank to publish an impact report on our green bond one year on. For example, we show the amount of CO2 emissions that has been avoided from the projects we have funded.

WHITE From an investor perspective there is an underlying mandate to see the impact. This requirement is less prevalent among the issuer base. As the market develops and it is measurable, this will grow.

TAPLEY Under the most recent version of the criteria released by the CBI standards, the suggestion for impact reporting is very strong. And investors are definitely looking for impact. They are saying ‘I understand the use of proceeds, but what is the impact?’

ANZ Banking Group (ANZ) will be publishing an impact report on its green bond with our Corporate Sustainability Report. This is in response to investor requests to do so.

We have been thinking about impact measurement a lot because investors are telling us they want the ability to show what impact their allocations are having. To do this, issuers need to show what we they are doing with their bond proceeds.

It is somewhat unchartered territory and therefore challenging. For example, if I take ANZ as an issuer, we can look – as we have already – to our project-finance for single-asset loans to hospitals, schools, light rail, desalination plants and so on, all of which can be easily mapped to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as the measure of impact. How we then apply this measure across our lending for general corporate purposes, across our corporate-lending book, becomes more challenging and subjective.

TAPLEY Yes, we are now starting to look at our Institutional lending book through the SDG lens. For me, this is the really exciting part – using the SDGs to show the impact we have through our basic reason for being, which is facilitating the flow of money.

CHEN We will be launching our new group sustainability strategy in November. Everything we do in this strategy will be mapped against the SDGs. We will be measuring and reporting on how we address the SDGs.

MACFARLANE I think there’s an opportunity for the SDGs to play a role in impact measurement, although understanding of the SDGs is still building. How we then embed them is the important piece.

At Commonwealth Bank of Australia we have mapped our corporate-responsibility strategy and our corporate-responsibility report to the SDGs. While we haven’t gone to the level of sitting down with Simon Ling and saying ‘now let’s map your book to the SDGs’ there is certainly an opportunity to do this down the line.

JENKINS The SDGs are giving a framework for impact measurement. We have teams internally that are working very actively on putting a framework in place, reporting our progress as a broader business against the SDGs. Corporate Australia is doing this too. We can take these learnings into the green-bond and social-bond arena.