This month Bazalgette Finance plc has issued £175 million of index-linked green bonds – to design, build, commission, and maintain the Thames Tideway Tunnel (TTT) in London.
Bazalgette Finance plc appointed S&P Global Ratings (Standard & Poor's Credit Market Services Europe Ltd) to issue the S&P Green Evaluation.
Bazalgette has also set up its own Tideway Green Bond Framework to support the financing of the construction of the Thames Tideway Tunnel. Tideway is a ‘pure-play’ issuer deriving all its revenues from green assets, i.e. the tunnel currently under construction.
S&P Global Ratings has now made public that the financing received a Green Evaluation score of E1/95, on a scale of E4 (lowest) to E1 (highest) or 1-100.
Out of the total amount, two tranches of £50 million will be placed with Aviva Life & Pensions UK Ltd
The Green bonds are being issued under Bazalgette’s £10 billion multi-currency bonds program established in May 2016. The TTT is the component of the London Tideway Improvements plan delivered by Bazalgette Tunnel Ltd.
S&P's Green Evaluation includes the positive environmental impact from the increase in available fresh water in the tidal Thames from wastewater treatment as well as carbon savings - 40% of the works’ power requirement will come from methane recovery.
Positive environmental impacts currently outside the scope of the Green Evaluation include reducing water pollution and supporting local biodiversity.
In S&P Global Ratings’ opinion, the transaction is aligned with the Green Bond Principles 2017 (GBP). Overall score was 95 out of 100, equivalent to E!, the highest Green Evaluation on the scale (E4 is the lowest).
The score was determined by taking a weighted aggregate of the subscores:
- Transparency (88/100)
- Governance (93/100)
- Mitigation (97/100)
The high transparency score reflects the disclosure requirements set by the regulators DEFRA, OFWAT and the Environment Agency. The providers of green evaluations themselves are currently not subject to any specific regulatory regime or other regime or oversight.
Bazalgette Tunnel Ltd is also committed to tracking and reporting the reduction of discharge over the delivery phase of the projects, although the scope and format of the reporting have yet to be finalised.
The data in the S&P Global Ratings Green Evaluation product, which is not a credit rating, is provided by TruCost.
An S&P Global Ratings Green Evaluation is an asset-level environmental credential which aims to provide investors with a more comprehensive picture of the green impact and climate risk attributes of their portfolios.
The asset-level environmental benchmark goes beyond existing frameworks, to evaluate relative environmental impact, taking into account the technology utilized. The evaluation can be applied to any type of financing.
Click here to read the S&P Global Ratings Green Evaluation in full
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