EACT SUMMIT 18

THE EACT SUMMIT 3 Nicholas Pfaff, ICMA: What was the initial motivation for your business to issue a green bond? Jane Pilcher, Anglian Water Group: Since 2010, we've been trying hard to get our customers to focus on using less water. We also have an aim of being carbon neutral. Importantly, though, we didn't start these initiatives to enable us to issue a green bond, they were already a part of our game plan and cultural DNA. That’s not to say that there weren’t other incentives for us to turn to green finance. There's a huge amount of focus at the moment on our industry from the media, the public and the UK government, as to whether the water industry is best owned by the government or privately. It is important to us is to demonstrate that we are doing the right thing as a private company, including accessing appropriate finance. Green bonds ticked all of the boxes for us, enabling us to stand out, talk about our green credentials, and what we're doing for the environment. In turn, this helps us demonstrate that the UK water industry is doing well in private ownership. Gregoire de Thier, ENGIE: Likewise, green bonds naturally complement the strategy that we set out a few years ago, moving us towards energy transition and the de- carbonisation of production. ENGIE is a major player in the utilities sector but electricity producers are among the highest emitters of CO2 and we absolutely have a responsibility to address this. What we do as a company demands a long-term investment plan for production assets. There has been tremendous change in this market in recent years with the deterioration of electricity prices and decreasing demand. But we see better pricing for renewables technology too, so we are ready to transition to more renewables. In the space of two years, we have reduced the production capacity of coal by 60% and increased the capacity in renewables by 25%. When we issued our first green bond, we knew we had to adapt our funding strategy in order to fulfil our sustainability objectives. Now it feels completely natural for us to participate in green finance. Gerard Tuinenburg, Unilever: Our involvement stems from the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan(USLP) introduced in 2010. At Unilever we believe that sustainable equitable growth is the only possible business model and that the business should put itself at the service of the society. The Unilever Sustainable Living Plan (USLP) outlines how we will achieve our sustainable growth ambition. It is at the heart of our business model, applying to every brand, every market and throughout our value chain – from the rawmaterials we use in our products to the amount of electricity and water people consume when using them. Seven years since launching the USLP, we're now proving that sustainability is no longer just the right thing to do – it also fuels growth. We've identified three areas which directly affect our business where we can help deliver real systems change by working in partnership with others such as NGOs climate change and deforestation water, sanitation and hygiene sustainable agriculture and smallholder farmers. We in treasury wanted to find ways to underpin the USLP through our activities, issuing a green bond was one means of doing this. When we issued a sustainability bond in 2014 it felt good for the treasury department to participate in and contribute to USLP. When issuing in this market, we also wanted to see if other corporates would follow suit and to set lofty standards for future issuance. Audience question: With plenty of ‘greenwashing evidence’ in recent years, howmuch of green financing is driven by a genuine social conscience, and howmuch by commercial imperatives? Jane Pilcher, AnglianWater Group: For us, it's not just looking to grab attention. We've got a real challenge. If society doesn't do something different, we're going to see significant changes as a result of climate change in the region in which we operate. As Jane Pilcher , Group Treasurer, AnglianWater Group Gerard Tuinenburg , Director of Systems and Processes, Unilever JuanMagaña , Senior Advisor, Innovation Finance Advisory, European Investment Bank (EIB) Gregoire de Thier , Head of Corporate Funding and Financial Vehicles, ENGIE Moderator : Nicholas Pfaff , Senior Director, International Capital Market Association (ICMA) Panellists