Steve Leicester: 

Good afternoon, everyone. I hope you’re all safe and well. Those of you who don’t know me, my name is Steve Leicester and I’m the CFO at ICMIF. I’m delighted to welcome you to our second webinar of the week on green bonds and why organizations should invest in them.  

I’m delighted to introduce Justine Leigh-Bell, Deputy CEO and Director of Market Development for the Climate Bonds Initiative in London; and Ylva Wessen, President and CEO of Folksam in Sweden. A very warm welcome to you both. Justine, since you’re first, perhaps you can set the scene for us, especially for those members who don’t know what green bonds are. 

Justine Leigh-Bell: 

Thanks, Steve. Well, good morning and good afternoon to wherever you are in the world. Yes, my name is Justine Leigh-Bell, Deputy CEO at Climate Bonds Initiative. And before I dive into the specifics around the market itself, it’s important to just give our listeners today a sense of who CBI is. We are a global organization non-profit, very much focused on the development of the green bonds markets. And of course, now different thematic labels that are emerging in this market, which is very much driven by the institutional investor. And we’ll hear a little bit about that today. The organization has been at the forefront of the development of the market, looking at things everywhere from the credibility of the label and ensuring standards are in place to ensure the longevity of the market policy work, which is working closely with public sector institutions, including governments around the world on how they can access this market and leverage this market to finance climate commitments. And of course, our market intelligence, which provides the market with the latest data trends and what’s developing. And then finally, our regional programs around the world across China, Southeast Asia, Africa, Latin America, really encompassing a lot of those regions and helping them to develop local markets. So just a quick introduction.

So turning, let’s go to the first slide, which will guide the conversation. It has a lot of different material that I’ll talk around. So first for those again, listeners that are just coming across green bonds, working to lay out what they are, they are a debt product like any other bonds, like vanilla bonds, except for they have two very distinct features relative to regular bonds. One is, what they’re financing. 100% eligible projects and assets that are going to deliver on a positive environmental impact. And then of course, the second is around the transparency and disclosure of what is being financed. So how the proceeds are being managed. And these are two very fundamental characteristics that differentiate the green bond from regular bonds. And I will say that it is also one that investors are increasingly attracted to because now the transparency around where their money is going and better management across their portfolios is what’s really driving this market. 

So I’d like to give a bit of history first, where we started with green bonds really emerged around 2014. There wasn’t much to speak of prior to that, of course, what we did see was the common awareness bond coming out of the European Investment Bank and of course, the World Bank coming in with the first notable green bond, and then finally, IFC with their benchmark issuance in 2013, which really set the scene. So it’s fair to say that the development finance institutions really pioneered this market, but of course, what was driving them to issue these types of products? Well, first it was the fact that institutionals across the Nordic pension funds, sovereign wealth funds were beginning to look beyond just normal financial risk assessments. They were also looking at the nonfinancial. 

The non-financial bang very much around climate risks against their portfolios. In other words to the extent that fossil fuel investments were posing future risks and how they were going to transition their portfolios to ones that were moving from, let’s say a browner economy to one that was moving towards a greener economy. And so the green bond served as a very useful investment vehicle to be able to address that risk. And so 2014, as you can see there, we started to emerge with corporates and DFIs issuing these products investor’s buying. 

When we started to move across the years, you can see the huge, exponential growth that has been taking shape. And in 2015 you had the likes of China stepping up and paying attention. One of the largest economies in the world recognize that there wasn’t enough public sector institution money to be able to finance the transition that needed to happen. And climate and environment was posing a massive risk, almost to an extent you could say and argue a national security risk, with the environmental issues that China faces. And so being able to access private capital to help finance that became very attractive. So you see that in 2016, we had quite a jump from roughly around $40 billion. Well, in 2016 alone, China went from $0 issuance to $40 billion alone. And from there, you started to see other countries around the world paying attention. So we moved away from this being very dominated by DFIs and the European market to one that was becoming global. 

You’ll also see the diversity of issuers. So in 2017 sovereigns entered the market and one would not expect this. One of the first issue was actually Nigeria’s government and has been a repeat issuer since then. And has abided by the rules that investors expect to see on the label itself, on ensuring the transparency and disclosure and reporting components that comes with that. And so that’s been a very interesting development. But to mention that since then we’ve had at least 25, 30 sovereigns issue and continues to be the case. Just a couple of weeks ago, Germany issued their first green bond and gained exceptional attention to this. 

What’s really driving this is for issuers is very much, number one, the diversification of the investor base. So every issuer is accessing new investors they’ve never been able to access before. And this is very much because of the green investors now that have been growing over the last decade, that asset managers and pension funds and so on across Europe, mainly driving this, but you’re also beginning to see the rise of Asian investors creating demand. And so this is a market that is very much global now, not just limited to one region of the world and sovereigns are recognizing that this is an opportunity for them to be able to access that capital to meet their climate commitments very much around the Paris commitments that were made in 2015. 

There’s also a diversity of issue or type. Beyond sovereigns, you’ve also got the non-financial and financial corporates, the local governments. So it’s not just national, we are also seeing municipal financing happening. US is most notable for this. That is what actually puts the US in a leadership position as one of the largest issuers because of the minibond market. And we’ve seen a lot of green bonds coming out of that space. And then finally, also the emergence of green loans from the banking sector. And if we look at China’s market alone with green loans, that is one of the largest opportunities is this huge market potential. We’ve also seen asset-backed securities and other securitized vehicles, mainly tied to mortgage-backed securities and in the automobile industry as well. 

Again, for the issuer, it’s the diversification of the investors. It’s also the reputational advantage that they’re getting. I think that this almost plays out to be a free marketing tool that comes with issuing green bonds because the attention around is so huge. There’s so much demand. There’s not enough supply to meet that demand. And of course, you can imagine a supply and demand effect will obviously put pressure on price. And so we are seeing a price differential taking shape in the international market, keeping in mind bonds that are happening on the domestic front, there’s still a lot of market education on the investor side locally to understand what this market is and the benefits the investor invests domestically. 

But international investors are very much aware of the benefits to them. It helps them meet their ESG mandates. It’s the E in ESG. And of course, different thematic labels are starting to emerge as well beyond just green. We’re seeing sustainability linked bonds and loans. We’re seeing social bonds. We’ve seen a few ESG bonds, regardless of whatever the label is, at the end of the day, what it signals to the investor is clearly about what is being financed and allows them to manage their portfolios accordingly. And also an engagement with their shareholders and so on. 

I think that gives you a high-level overview. I think one of the things to mention, particularly given what we’ve seen in this last year with the outbreak of the pandemic, I think there was a lot of questions about, how that would affect this market? And green bonds continues to be a buy and hold market. Investors treat them as very high-quality investment products and tend to hold on. And we’ve seen that effect continue even through the crises, where in other cases, we saw a lot of dumping of bonds into the market to address the impact of the economy was facing, but green bonds remained to be stable. And so that was a very encouraging thing. And we’ve also continued to see issuance, really fantastic issuance. In fact, aside from the German bond, we also saw Thailand issue a sustainability bond that was very well received in the market. We’ve seen Indonesia, a repeat issuer of green sukuk come again a couple months ago and in Parole also issue a pandemic bond. 

That’s been a very interesting development in case of pandemic bonds that is clearly trying to address the impact that COVID is happening and a lot of the investments there is going towards hospitals, education, some of the more high-level ones that we’ve we’ve seen. So with that, I think what has happened with COVID is, it’s brought the climate agenda to the forefront, the environmental issues that we’re facing because I think a lot of the market has been an investor, in particular have been able to look at this and say, “Look, if we can’t handle a shock like COVID, how are we going to be able to deal with our future shocks related to climate and other environmental issues?” And so there’s been an insatiable increase in demand for labelled products since then. And so we expect the market to continue and drive through even in light of the crises. 

I think also just to mention things that are happening in the EU. So aside from just the market’s growth, we’re also seeing the rules of the game take shape and governments taking initiative and regulators taking initiative on that. And in the last few years, the EU has put in place their sustainable finance agenda which started with the development of the EU taxonomy for sustainable finance. And that has now put in place, let’s say a green catalogue of what the investment opportunities are for the EU countries to meet their climate goals and set the guidance to the market on what the investments need to be. And so that’s been a huge, huge development. 

And since COVID now, I think if any of our listeners who have been keeping up with the news, we’ve just had the recent announcement of the EUR 750 billion rescue stimulus package out of the EU where they’re expecting 30% of that to be financed through green bonds. So really stepping up in such a short period of time, the commitments and recognizing opportunities as market has to pose, EU is really leading the way. And we’re seeing China following in suit and other countries to that end, looking to see how they themselves can do a similar exercise. So yeah, I think I’ll stop there. I’m happy to take any questions or however you would like to proceed, Steve. Thank you. 

Steve Leicester: 

Thank you, Justine. That’s very comprehensive. Just in terms of the market growth, what’s the level ambition of the green bond market to grow and to what value and by when? 

Justine Leigh-Bell: 

I think ambition is extremely high. Like I said, year on year, we’re moving into hundreds and hundreds of different types of issuers and every year coming into the market. Last year, let me give you perspective on numbers. In 2013, 2012, we were at about $ 3 billion. We’re now close to $900 billion. A lot of this is refinancing. So I think it’s important to that in these last 10 years of the market, it has been about proving that this market can work and proving that green bonds is a valuable investment vehicle to move the private capital into the right climate solutions, climate change solutions. So it has been about understanding what we mean by green. So a lot of the repackaging and refinancing of the existing asset base across renewable energy, through transport, low-carbon transport assets, public mass transit systems, looking at our land use systems, our water infrastructure, all of these things that are in play, but reorganizing portfolios to prioritize those assets under the label that then gives a new investor base and potentially a price benefit. 

Over time we expect that through different infrastructure plannings and budgets at government level and even at corporate level, you begin to see more of those investments hitting the market. But then I think where we’re at now is around transition. And so, okay, that’s all good, low-hanging fruit. We’ve proven this market works, but what do we do about the high carbon emission sectors like steel, all across the manufacturing, the oil and gas, fossil fuel sectors, what role do they have here? 

I don’t think it’s as easy to say, we shut them down and move on. What we do is to try and get them moving into developing new business models that allows them to compete and also be able to contribute to the green economy. So I think in terms of ambition, I think it’s high. I think investors are increasingly becoming educated in this market, knowing what they need to be looking for, putting pressure on the issuer base to give them credible investments and those that are climate aligned. That’s really where we are. We’re increasingly becoming more ambitious with metrics and rules and how we measure the performance of these assets going forward. 

Steve Leicester: 

And they would also seem to be like the perfect tool to tackle the SDG targets set by the UN as well I would think? 

Justine Leigh-Bell: 

That’s exactly right. I think what underpins the SDGs is about climate resilience. If we’re talking about being able to achieve those goals, 17 goals, if you look at most of them, it’s impossible to achieve any of those successfully if we don’t address the urgency of climate change. And so climate bonds is looking at this more from the resilience frame. And of course, now with the pandemic hitting, you’re looking at this in three dimensions, it’s not just about environmental resilience. It’s also about social and economic resilience. And I think that’s the new wave of development across the taxonomies is how we’re able to invest in what we need to taking into account that paradigm, but also keeping in mind that how do we match the goals to what we’re we’re investing in? 

Steve Leicester: 

Great. Thank you. Very comprehensive. Ylva, if I can turn to you, perhaps you can talk through Folksam green bond journey and responsible investing journey. 

Ylva Wessen: 

Thank you. And a good morning and good afternoon to you. My name is Ylva Wessen and I’m the President and CEO of Folksam, which is Sweden’s largest insurance group, measured by premiums. Let’s see if I have control over it. One moment. I’m trying to move the slides now, okay? Yes. Thank you. And yeah, why are we doing this? Why are we investing in green bonds? Now, it all comes down to our vision and the purpose of our business. And we want our customers to feel secure in a sustainable world. That’s our vision and it has been our vision for centuries. And we insure every other person in Sweden, every other household is insured by Folksam. This means that whatever we do and what we invest in has an impact on our customers and our society and I believe it’s also has an impact on the world. I’m not more humble than that. 

They’re all different times where there needs different ways to take leadership. And we can go back as far as 1972 when Sweden was the host of the first UN Environment Summit and Folksam was engaged in that meeting. And we issued our first climate index of Swedish stock exchange companies 18 days ago to measure how they kept up with climate change and climate index. And in 2006 we were involved in drafting the UN Principles for Responsible Investment. And in here, you can see how that has developed that now the UN PRI signatories now representing more than 30% of global assets under management. And we were then 2006 started this. Yes, thank you. And at this stage in time, we saw an opportunity, this is more than a year ago and it was presented one year ago. The Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance, which is a UN-convened Asset Owner Alliance for global investors. And this is an international group of institutional investors, committed to transition that investment portfolios to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2015. So that’s what we have signed up to. 

Our total investment portfolio should have net-zero greenhouse emissions by 2015. And as Justine just said, we can’t ask the whole steel industry to just shut down and move on. But by engaging in this alliance, we can tell the steel industry that we will not be able to invest in you by 2015, unless you have changed your business model and achieve net-zero emissions. And I think that’s quite good. It’s a very concrete target for them. And it’s a concrete target for us. And together we can work towards this. The easiest way for us to reach net-zero emission in our investment portfolio is of course, to divest. But when doing that, we haven’t changed anything. We have just made our own portfolio with net-zero emissions. But we want to change and have an impact on the companies and the investments that we in investing. 

This initiative which was launched at the Secretary-General’s 2019’s Climate Action Summit in New York which is one year ago, we were there on the big scene on the big night. We were after Greta Thunberg, but we were before President Macron. And this was presented as the most important private initiative during the whole summit. Since then, the alliance has grown considerably and now consists of 29 members, managing nearly USD 55 trillion in assets. And we have members from North America, Australia and Europe. And the purpose is, of course to have the more the merrier. You’re all welcome to join. Yeah, and as I said, the pressure upon companies and other assets to speed up for their transition is the purpose of this alliance. 

And now coming to green bonds, which is, of course, one important investment for us, we have invested over 30 billion Swedish Krona in green bonds, plus SEK 2 billion in social bonds, corona bonds with which I will talk a little bit later on. And $2.5 billion in SDG bonds. So the question, why do we invest in specific like in green bonds? Yeah, well, as I started to say, our vision is that our customers should feel secure in a sustainable world. And investing for sustainable world has long been a center focused on strategy. 

And green bonds is an excellent way of ensuring that our investments fulfil this purpose in an effective and transparent way. And we increase on possibilities to target our investments for specific purposes and in order to follow what will happen if we invest in this green bond. And the green bond investments make it possible for us to communicate with our customers so they can see what their potential pensions and private pensions, what the money is doing during the saving with us? We not only giving them in return. But during the 20 or 30 or 40 years, we manage their savings. The savings can do better for the world. 

And as Justine just said, this gives us, as an investor an opportunity to interact with issuers, with our clients, with investors and with society as a whole. And Steve, when we prepared for this webinar, you asked me, do we find that Folksam’s return has been compromised by investing in green bonds? And the answer to that is no, we haven’t. And in August, there was a list of all life insurers in Sweden that had pension funds and savings on the management. And besides the closed insurer, which is no longer accepting new customers to start savings, Folksam was number one of total return. So the answer is clearly, no, I can’t see that. And unfortunately, the return, since it was a half year book, I thought it was by June, that is June, the books were closing that, it was a negative return due to the pandemic and the drops off down the market and Asian markets. But the green bonds look positive. 

But our negative total return was due to the stock market, not due to our bond market or our bond investments. Sweden is the first sovereign green bond this summer. And we were, of course, as an investor with that, we were 72 investors that wanted to participate. There were more investors than possibilities to invest in the green bond. And we were able to get 474 million Swedish Krona in this bond. And we think this is a very positive to that the state is using green bond because it’s so concrete contribute to climate investments. And this specific bond that has goes through climate investment, railway maintenance and so on. And as Justine also mentioned, that Ursula von der Leyen in the State of the Union Speech a few days ago said that 30% of the EU Corona recovery package will be raised via green bonds. This is positive. And this is, I would say, just another step to make green bonds mainstream. 

As we talked about, when preparing for this webinar, the question of the webinar could have been turned around, why not invest in green bonds? See, and this is a picture of a city of Sweden called Kristianstads. And all green bond investment in the city helps building a climate adaptation wall. It’s a barrier against flooding. Even in Sweden, we face this threat. And by doing this, by having these kinds of examples of green bonds, we can talk directly to our customers within these cities and saying, “Hey, why saving with us? We help your city to develop.” And this, I think it’s a good way to communicate with your customers and also to make them feel proud of choosing the right insurer. And then also it makes… Green bonds give investments a face. And this is a game changer. And we have been on this journey quite a lot since we decided to walk-the-talk. And yeah, well… Yeah, basically we can show our customers what their money’s doing, what their money is doing the investments? 

Why has Sweden issued more green bonds than any other nation worldwide since 2015? Well, we have been at the forefront of sustainability and climate change for a long time. And the fact that Swedish investors has been a driving force, I think is one of the explanation. We demoed this by the issue. And we also have a high-degree of focus on ESG within government corporations and society as a whole. And today, green bonds is natural among institutional investors. And if you don’t have a green bond, it’s more or less the opposite. Customers and people raise their eyebrows and ask why. 

And finally, green bonds, we’ve been on that market for quite a long time. And now we are moving forward positive to social bonds. And the Corona crisis made us take a few more steps in this area. And we invested two billion Swedish kronas in order to fight the corona crisis. And the volumes of social bonds are previously been quite small one, but it’s getting better. And yeah, investments to fight against COVID will drive this further on. And I think I will stop there. 

Steve Leicester: 

Thank you very much, Ylva. 

Ylva Wessen: 

Do you have other questions? 

Steve Leicester: 

Very comprehensive. A few questions for me before we go to the audience, if I may, maybe Justine one for you. In respect to green bonds, how can the investors be sure the investments are truly green and companies are not undertaking greenwashing? 

Justine Leigh-Bell: 

Very good question. And it tends to be the number one question for participants that are here at this market for the first time. There has been an extensive amount of work since the beginning of this market on ensuring the credibility behind the label. And in 2014, starting with the green bond principles set by the International Capital Market Association, which consists of, well, they serve as a secretariat to the green bond principles. And from that is a group across all sides of the market, both investors, issuers and intermediaries that have come together to ensure the guiding principles are in place for issuers to know exactly what the process is for issuing these types of bonds. And that’s very much around the identification of the projects, making sure that they are in line with credible definitional work, which I’ll touch on here in a minute. There’s also the ways in which they’re setting up their systems and operations internally to manage the proceeds and report on those proceeds. And of course, being able to commit to the recording over the duration of the bond term. 

Second to that has been what common bonds initiative has been quite instrumental in putting forward into the market of which other countries even the EU for that example had been picking up is the taxonomy. So you’ll hear a lot of taxonomy, taxonomy. What that essentially is, is a green catalog, which is not just limited to green. It’s also picking up social investments and things that can contribute to SDG. But essentially what that is, is looking at all the major sectors of the global economy, it’s sketching out what the key investments are that are needed to transition those economic sectors to one that is low-carbon and climate resilient and environmentally sustainable, let’s say across the board. And so think of that as a catalog to refer to on what are eligible assets. 

So standard frameworks and things of that nature are there. And this is how the market is operating against. It’s also important to note that there is an independent review that is done on these bonds. So aside from regular bond financing, here the requirement is, you hire an independent reviewer that comes in and does almost similar to record it that provides investors the report that identifies that everything is in line with the green bond principles and gives clarity about what’s going to be invested in. It’s the commitment of the issuer to maintaining the credibility of the label over the bond term. So I want to ease any doubt for those listening today, especially for those that invest is that the market is abiding by these rules. And what we’re seeing is a move towards regulation which we are expecting to see in the EU context where the taxonomy and standardization of this market will be regulated. 

Steve Leicester: 

Thank you. Ylva, for members looking at green bonds or social bonds as an investment, do you have any recommendations or experiences you can share with them and how they can learn from you? 

Ylva Wessen: 

On choosing a green bond? Start to talk with your community, with the sovereign, the municipality and the banks. And so we want to do this. So start with reliable partners and ask for a green bond. We have money, we want to do an investment. That has an impact on our society and that’s gives us a reliable return. So I was saying that, yes, start to talk with the partners that you are interested to work. 

Steve Leicester: 

Okay. We have quite a number of questions that have come in. One here, the economist this week had an article that stated, “What is the point of green bonds?” Sean Kidney [CEO of the Climate Bonds Initiative] has quoted the thrust of the article was not positive as many were refinancing. Do you have a comment on this article? Justine, I think that’s perhaps one for yourself. 

Justine Leigh-Bell: 

Yeah, I touched on this earlier that a lot of what you’re seeing in this market is refinancing, but there’s also a new project developments and financing happening as well. And it’s not just a refinancing. But let’s understand that when developing a new bond market, it is notably around refinance. And again, we’ve been going through a market education, understanding what is green and looking at the existing asset base to start to organize ourselves accordingly on how to prioritize those assets, which over time will develop themselves into creating opportunities for new product development. 

This is not a project financing market, right? So a lot of what we need to be taking into consideration here is that, they need to be proven, tried and tested operational assets that can be eligible for bond financing. The kind of investors that we’re dealing with, particularly with Folksam is that they can’t take on risk. And so it’s really important that we don’t glorify this market in a way that is, well, it’s green, so it should take on additional set of risks. It’s a bond market at the end of the day. 

And so I’m sure, Ylva probably say a few words to that. But I think in terms of the article itself, this has been the additionality discussion has been emerging throughout the years. And it’s one that’s actually quite weak, given that we’re about to hit a trillion this year, probably questionable to what level of impact we’re actually achieving in that trillion? Again, I stress this has been about market education on what’s possible, and I believe the next trillion to come we’ll ever see more increase into new project developments, but again, those that are able to take on one financing.

Steve Leicester: 

Okay. We’ve seen growth in respect to the issuance of green bonds by sovereigns like France and Germany, Poland and Sweden as Ylva said, but nothing yet by the UK government. And that’s despite issuance hasn’t been able to subscribed. Do you see that changing, maybe this year? 

Justine Leigh-Bell: 

I think we have all been a bit waiting with bated breath on how the UK is going to take on this market, given that they are now the host to the next COP in November, I wouldn’t be surprised if we would not see the UK issuing a sovereign green bond. There’s a lot of talk about this happening. I think we just have to wait and see. 

Steve Leicester: 

Okay. Ylva, we’re seeing growth in green bonds, pink bonds, blue bonds even, social sustainable bonds. Do you think these different classifications confuse the investor? 

Ylva Wessen: 

Not investors. I would say we are quite good at orientating ourselves in this world. It might be more confusing to our customers or to people within outside the financial market. And that’s why it’s so important that you can also give a concrete example of what this green bond does so you can understand. And I also think that in the coming years, we will see, driven by the taxonomy as well, more green bonds, more different green bonds, perhaps not 50 shades of green, but different shades of green. And I’m not sure that will help customers to orientate themselves. But it will also be up to us to explain if you invest, you start saving with us, we invest in a green bond and the green-green bond is slightly better than the light green bond. 

Steve Leicester: 

Indeed. Justine, where can our members go to learn more about green bonds, if they’re interested in investing? 

Justine Leigh-Bell: 

Wow, there’s so much. There’s so much. Well, I think going back to the ICMA websites, the International Capital Market Association, would be an important place to visit because that will give you the backdrop to the green bond principles and a bit of history there and what those are. The Climate Bonds Initiative, our website, carries a lot of information regarding the markets in the market developments, but also standard frameworks in taxonomies and so on. There’s also the EU Sustainable Finance. They have also produced a webpage that you can access that will give you all that’s happening in the EU regarding the sustainable finance agenda and where it’s going. I think those would probably be the major places. I don’t know if Ylva has any other suggestions. Those would be the obvious ones. 

Steve Leicester: 

Finally, Justine, as Ylva says, why would you invest in green bonds that are a safe investment, with good returns, and as a business, you’re doing your bit for the environment in helping fight climate change, but quite climate change? It seems almost to me is a bit of a slam dunk. 

Justine Leigh-Bell: 

Yeah, I think you’re right. Look, this is not a market has been built. This is not a market that has been built on. This is also not a market that is an impact to the [inaudible 00:43:43], although we do expect to see impact coming from the investments from green bonds. But at the end of day, this is the bond market. And this has emerged to be a very exciting part of the bond market and one that we expect to be growing significantly in the years ahead. Investors are being faced with two decisions either if you imagine having two bonds in front of you, one irregular vanilla bond and the other green bond, same risk reward profile, except for you’re getting an extra bonus feature with your green bond. As an investor, why would you not? It’s not a riskier product. It expects to do the same. 

Investors need returns. And at the end of the day, this is our pensions. So it’s not about taking risks. It is assessing the product exactly how you would with any other bond, but this gives you an added benefit of engagement, transparency that are management of your investments. And then touching on a few points that Ylva made because I have to say, it’s a pleasure to share the stage with you oh, like today because without the Swedes and the Nordics as a whole, this market wouldn’t exist, okay? 

 This is that leadership positions within these institutions one that you hold has really helped drive this market. And so that’s a really important note to make. And so if I look at seeing what’s… Pensions, we have a fiduciary duty. And it is about managing our retirements in a responsible way. And it no longer makes sense to be the risk that’s happening in the nonfinancial side is huge. And so we expect to see pensions taking that seriously. For the issuers, the access, particularly when we’re talking about the high-carbon emission sectors, the market is moving, is moving faster than we expect. And I think issuers need to wake up and realize that their access to existing in financing streams is going to be limited because the momentum on the investor side is growing to such a degree. 

To give you an example, the largest pension fund in the world, Japan’s GPIF, recently took strides to start being very actively engaged with their asset managers and in particular BlackRock most recently. And although we’re hearing a lot coming out of BlackRock about their commitments to the ESG all the way up to Larry Fink, none of that would’ve happened without GPI’s pressure on BlackRock to start taking this seriously or they’re going to take their business somewhere else. That’s how serious this is. So I think coming back to the investor side, this is a huge opportunity to tick a lot of boxes, boxes that are necessary for us to have a future really. And there’s a role that our pinches have to play here as long as they are presented with a buyable attractive product to invest in. And I think green bonds presents the investment community with that opportunity. 

Steve Leicester: 

Excellent. Thank you for that. Okay, so we’re almost out of time. I’d like to thank our panel again. We really appreciate your time and insights today. Really interested in learning about green bonds. I’m sure our members found that very, very useful. Thank you everybody for listening. I hope you enjoyed the webinar.

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