17 June 2011
Swedish bank SEB, one of the pioneers of the environmental bonds market, has bulked up and formalised its sustainable products department in what its head describes as a vote of confidence in the sector.
Christopher Flensborg, the Stockholm-based head of sustainable products at the bank, said that business manager Samantha Sutcliffe has joined the team.
It has also established a network within the bank, with co-ordinators in four business units appointed on a part-time basis to support the sustainable products department. Flensborg declined to disclose within which business units they sit.
“This is a signal that we believe in this market,” Flensborg told Environmental Finance.
SEB has arranged around $2 billion of the total $12 billion of green bonds issued over the last few years, on behalf of the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation (IFC).
Flensborg declined to go into details on the department’s plans, but said that “without expanding across the credit range, and without expanding across the market, it will be difficult for [an environmental bonds market] to get off the ground.”
SEB is understood to be working with at least one corporate issuer on a forthcoming green bond, but Flensborg declined to comment.
Mark Nicholls
