In November 2022, KangaNews and Westpac hosted the New Zealand Sustainable Finance Summit as an in-person event in Auckland, for the first time since 2020. Speakers discussed the pressing need to turn good intentions and high-level thought into action on climate transition.

The New Zealand corporate market provides as clear a sign as any that investor demand is often not the primary driver of borrower decisions to pursue sustainability-labelled debt issuance. While local retail investors – the most active corporate bond buyers in 2022 – may not be demanding labelled product, however, there are still plenty of signs of growing market momentum.

Mercury NZ’s return to the domestic market refinances debt used to acquire Trustpower in 2021. The power company says it has now met its funding requirements for 2022 and, with a small refinancing task ahead, may be less active in the medium term.

Corporate and government-sector issuers from New Zealand took massive steps forward in sustainable debt funding in the last quarter of 2021 as a flood of transactions came to market. Issuers tapped the domestic, Australian and euro bond markets for use-of-proceeds funding while the steady flow of sustainability-linked loan facility completions also continued.