This is also the largest-ever single green certification by the Climate Bonds Initiative (CBI). The proceeds of the programme will be used to finance existing and future renewable generation assets that meet the CBI’s green-bond principles and climate-bonds standard.

The bulk of Contact’s geothermal assets already qualify, and the company believes standards for hydro-power inclusion should emerge in the relatively near future.

All Contact’s existing bank debt, commercial paper and term bonds are now certified as green under the programme. The company also finalised a new NZ$75 million bank facility with ANZ as its first new green-certified debt issuance.

Louise Tong, head of capital markets and tax at Contact in Wellington, credits the expertise of the ANZ team. ANZ guided Contact through the programme’s establishment, using what Tong calls its “good understanding of what was required and [ability to] explain how it all worked, help us devise the approach, and provide assistance with written material and documentation”.

Katharine Tapley, head of sustainable finance at ANZ in Sydney, says advancing environmental sustainability through its clients is core to the bank’s purpose. “In partnering with Contact on its green borrowing programme, we created a solution giving investors and lenders access to a range of debt instruments that fund low-carbon activity and align to the goal of a net zero carbon economy by 2050,” comments Tapley.

This synergistic approach demonstrates ANZ executives’ belief that corporate clients are making their own commitments to sustainability at the same time as the bank. This is clearly the case for Contact, because although Tong points to a longstanding corporate focus on sustainability she also highlights the recent emergence of critical mass on the funding side.

“I was also aware of a groundswell of interest in sustainable finance coming from the financial-markets community. It got to the point where it seemed apparent to me that these two trends were really starting to cross over,” she tells KangaNews.