Kommuninvest, the Swedish local government funding agency, today published its second assurance report regarding its green bonds framework. The report, performed by Kommuninvest’s external auditor KPMG, provides assurance on the management of proceeds obtained from the issuance of green bonds.
Kommuninvest issued its inaugural green bond in March 2016, for USD 600 million, and has since issued two additional green bonds, for SEK 5 billion and USD 500 million, in October 2016 and May 2017, respectively. Issued green bonds finance lending to Swedish municipal investment projects in renewable energy, energy efficiency, green buildings, public transport and water management. As of 30 September 2017, Kommuninvest had built up a green loan book amounting to approx. SEK 25 billion (USD 3.1 billion), committing funds to some 140 investment projects in 80 Swedish municipalities and county councils/regions.
Kommuninvest’s green bond framework is aligned with the Green Bond Principles (GBP), of which Kommuninvest is a member. The GBP recommends issuers to use an external review to confirm the alignment of their green bonds with the key features of the GBP, to provide investors and other interested parties with independent assurance.
Kommuninvest engages such external input in two ways. Firstly, the green bonds framework has a second party opinion from Cicero, the Oslo-based climate and environmental research institute. The second opinion is available in the Green Bonds section of Kommuninvest’s website.
Secondly, Kommuninvest engages its external auditor to provide assurance on the management of proceeds obtained from the issuance of green bonds. The first such review was performed in March 2016. The second review, which has formed the basis for the report published today, was performed in August 2017.
The report has been undertaken in accordance with the Swedish standard for agreed-upon procedures engagements, SNT 4400, which is based on the International Standard on Related Services, ISRS 4400. The report is available for download below.
Readers are advised that, following a meeting in the Kommuninvest Green Bonds Environmental Committee on September 26, 2017, project #94 has been approved. Project #89 is under review for additional documentation from the borrower.
For projects #99 and #129, negative amounts are shown in the column ”Still to borrow”. This is attributable to loan to the same borrower for multiple projects in the same project category, however the total amount disbursed to the projects did not exceed the total amount granted. Since the review was conducted on 24 August, 2017 this has been corrected.
Kommuninvest Green Bonds Assurance Report 2017
About Kommuninvest
Kommuninvest is a municipal cooperation for efficient and sustainable financing of housing, infrastructure, schools, hospitals etc. Together, we get better loan terms than each one individually. Since its inception in 1986, the Kommuninvest collaboration has helped lower the local government sector’s borrowing costs by many billion kronor. Currently, 288 municipalities and county councils/regions are members of this voluntary cooperation. With total assets approaching SEK 400 billion (USD ~50 billion), Kommuninvest is the largest lender to the local government sector and the sixth largest credit institution in Sweden. The head office is located in Örebro.
For further information
Björn Bergstrand, Head of Sustainability and Senior Investor Relations Manager, +46 708 86 94 76, e-mail: bjorn.bergstrand@kommuninvest.se
