UK focuses on plain green Gilts

摘要

The UK has been innovative in its green bond framework and coming retail issue, yet plans to pursue a largely conventional ESG debt strategy, according to the head of the Debt Management Office, Robert Stheeman. Greening its inflation-linkers and treasury bills, never mind breaking new ground with the first sovereign sustainability-linked bond issue, is not on the menu, as yet. The social co-benefits of green expenditures that the UK plans to report under its framework, the limited one-year lookback on past expenditures and the green savings bond that the Treasury's NS&I retail unit will offer later this year, all move the needle for sovereign green bond activity. But the sovereign's institutional green offerings are set to remain focused on standard benchmark bonds.