Bpifrance won two awards this year: Award for innovation – use of proceeds (green bond); and Impact report of the year (for issuers).
Environmental Finance judges praised Bpifrance for its "comprehensive range of green projects" as the winner of this year's Award for innovation – use of proceeds (green bond). Its fourth green bond issue last year raised €1.5 billion ($1.6 billion) and was its largest green issue to date.
Proceeds went toward the financing of renewable energy loans for construction and operation of facilities dedicated to onshore and offshore wind and solar projects in France. It also allocated some proceeds to green building loans for acquiring existing buildings or construction of new ones, or the refurbishment of existing buildings.
Some proceeds were also allocated to loans to finance and support the emergence and growth of 'greentech' companies: those providing service, product or technology that enhances a user's impact of at least one of the EU's environmental objectives. This category is one of the distinctive points of the framework, and eligible green projects are fully aligned with Bpifrance's climate plan.
Following an update, Bpifrance's green bond framework was aligned with the latest version the International Capital Market Association's Green Bond Principles and alignment of many of its loans with the EU Taxonomy. It has also implemented a look-back period of three years, with a two-year best effort basis.
For the Impact report of the year award, judges praised its "clear and concise" impact report with "good granularity of data" report for its Green Bond 3 Allocation & Impact Report 2023.
Bpifrance rapidly grew its impact monitoring efforts of its green bond portfolio in the past year. The 2024 report marks the third publication of the report and marked an increase in its impact indicators reported – from 19 in the first 2022 report, to 54 in 2024.
Bpifrance provides an Impact and Allocation Report every year and until the maturity of each bond. All of the projects financed are located in France, and project-by-project data are available to investors on an excel sheet provided with the report.
The lender provides investors with access to project-by-project impact indicators, updated on its website regularly. For each loan, it shares a project description, sector and environmental objective, total project cost, share of financing, amount of green bond proceeds allocated, project start date and end date, nature of green asset, and taxonomy alignment as a percentage. Avoided CO2 are gathered for each projects according to a transparent methodology which is disclosed in the report.
It secured second party opinion by ISS ESG to confirm its alignment with the Green Bond Principles, and third-party certification by KPMG.
