Barclays was described by an Environmental Finance Sustainable Debt Awards judge as an “European market leader” for innovation in the sustainability-linked bond (SLB) market as it picked up the SLB lead manager of the year award.

During 2024, Barclays was involved in SLB deals which raised more than $9 billion in total – equivalent to almost a third of all the deals during the year by volume.

The UK-listed bank served as joint lead manager and bookrunner on deals including around €3.75 billion ($4.1 billion) worth of SLBs from Italian energy infrastructure firm and SLB market pioneer Enel,a €700 million deal from Czech power firm CEZ in August, and a €500 million bond issue from Danish telecommunications infrastructure firm TDC Net in April. 

Barclays also served as joint structuring advisor and bookrunner on the €750 million deal from Gatwick Airport in October as well as ESG structuring coordinator and joint bookrunner on a €1 billion SLB from Italian energy firm Snam in February.

These latter deals allowed Barclays to demonstrate its role in structuring innovative SLB transactions. The Gatwick transaction included targets focused on reducing absolute Scope 1 & 2 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, as well as reducing emissions intensity from landing and take-off. Meanwhile, the Snam deal combined an SLB tranche with a green bond tranche and was issued under a new, updated framework by the ground-breaking issuer.