As ESG finance evolves across the Americas and the variety of products available to finance corporate climate transition strategies increase, issuers and investors alike are having to weigh up the advantages choosing green bonds versus sustainability-linked bonds, according to a panel of issuers at Environmental Finance's Americas Focus day conference.
Amanda Brock, president and COO of Solaris Water Midstream – a first-time issuer of a sustainability-linked bond (SLB) in 2020 – spoke about Solaris' motivation behind choosing such a product to assist with the water infrastructure company's sustainability aims.
Working in the arid Permian Basin in the South West of the US – supplying recycled water to the oil and gas industry – makes the company an interesting case, said Brock.
"The SLB was the perfect vehicle for us...we are a company that was viewed as being associated with something that you don't think about as being SLB ready, which is, our primary customers are in the oil and gas industry," she said.
"However, investors want a company like ours...We now have the ability to say that what we are doing is also sustainable. [The investor response] was overwhelming and [the SLB] was five times oversubscribed and everyone was very interested to talk about the ESG aspects of our business.
"It helped us find a different type of investor as well," she added.
The discussion, which was moderated by gold sponsor JP Morgan, was the first event in a series of six taking place in 2021 as part of Environmental Finance's ESG in Fixed Income Global Series.
A clip of the panel can be viewed below. The full panel discussion and the other discussions from the day are still available to view on the events platform.
Moderator: Marilyn Ceci, Managing Director & Global Head of ESG Debt Capital Markets, JP Morgan
Panellists: Stephen Liberatore, Managing Director, Head of ESG/Impact – Global Fixed Income, Nuveen
Amanda Brock, President and COO, Solaris Water Midstream
Robin Boren, Treasurer, Southern Company
Allan Munoz, Senior Manager, Corporate Finance, Coca-Cola FEMSA
All hosted on a single platform, to enable the community to flourish, attendees of the ESG in Fixed Income Global Series have access to presentations live, on the day, and on-demand post-event. Delegates will also be able to use the event platform to network with each other and our partners throughout the year. Supporters of the event will also have visibility on the platform outside of the conference days alone.
If you are interested in partnering with us for these events, please contact Neil Porteous on +44 (0)203 326 6269 or email neil.porteous@environmental-finance.com, to discuss your specific requirements and the opportunities available.
Channels:Green Bonds
