DKB Green Bond Reporting 2017 2 | DKB Green Bond Reporting 2017 | Contents
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DKB Green Bond Reporting 2017 2 | DKB Green Bond Reporting 2017 | Contents Contents Preface 3 Sustainability at DKB 4 Objectives for sustainable development 9 Green Bond reporting 11 External review (third-party assurance) 17 Appendix 18 Legal notice 21 3 | DKB Green Bond Reporting 2017 | Preface Dear investors and prospective clients, The year 2017 marks another highlight in the still new history of green bonds. With an issuing volume of approxi- mately USD 150 billion, the market segment of sustainable bonds has reached a new record. There is no end in sight to this trend – on the contrary, there are more and more global issuers, investors, market participants and organisa- tions that are taking on the topic and providing further impetus. The reason is clear: following the decisions of COP21 in 2015 in Paris, the political and economic focus on the conse- quences of climate change and sustainable social action has once again grown. Greater efforts are needed to reduce greenhouse gases, pollution and related negative social effects. The United Nations has published a comprehensive catalogue of sustainable topics with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This trend cannot be ignored by the financial industry, especially as it plays a key role in the management and distribution of money and investment flows. That is why various initiatives have been launched worldwide to make financial institutions more involved in sustainable economic transformation. In Europe, it is above all the EU High-Level Expert Group on Sustainable Finance (HLEG) that has made concrete proposals for achieving greater sustainable alignment of stakeholders in the financial and capital markets. It is expected that at least some of these measures will be reflected in European regulations or legislation in the future. Deutsche Kreditbank (DKB) supports these endeavours and is committed to the goals of sustainable and socially responsible action. This is reflected in the bank’s business model, which focuses on financing of municipal infrastruc- ture, renewable energies and retail banking in Germany. The outstanding sustainable quality of DKB is verified in independent evaluation processes. In the corporate rating of ISS-oekom, the bank, with a rating of “B–” for the third consecutive year, is Industry Leader in its peer group of international commercial and public banks and is the only financial institution with the grade “good”. This also means that DBK retains “prime status”. DKB is also one of the few German commercial banks actively involved in the growth of the green bond market. In September of last year, for example, we successfully placed our second unsecured Green Bond with a total value of EUR 500 million. As part of the Green Bond Principles, the bank is involved in the further development of this market segment and has contributed to the creation of the Social Bond Principles, which were published in 2017. DKB also supports discussions and initiatives that go beyond capital market activities. The keyword here is: green or sustainable finance. For DKB this means holistic, sustainable thinking in the banking business, which is reflected in the business model, products, processes, investments and within the context of credit decisions. DKB has already made many changes. Nonetheless, we recognise that there is still a lot of work to do to live up to our aspiration to be one of the pioneers of sustainable banking. For this reason, we intend to increase the output of wind, solar and biogas plants installed through our loans by 5–10 % in the medium term. This report on our Green Bond issues is a building block of this ambition, which we use to report on the material scale and sustainable impact of the projects refinanced with Green Bonds. We hope you have found this information useful, and that it makes interesting reading – we would welcome your feedback. Stefan Unterlandstättner Chairman of the Board of Management of Deutsche Kreditbank AG 4 | DKB Green Bond Reporting 2017 | Sustainability at DKB Sustainability at DKB DKB sees sustainability as a cross-company concept that encompasses various aspects of banking operations: • DKB as a commercial bank, which uses • One of the leading financing around 83 % of its total assets in the partners for renewable energies in form of loans for domestic projects and Germany customers • Municipalities and municipal • Regional and sustainable focus on cus- companies as the largest customer tomer business and on the entire banking group value chain • Resource-efficient online banking in retail banking Prod el uc od ts m an s d s p e r in o s c u e B s s e s S y o g c o l i e o t c y e a s n s d e n s i t s a u f B • Environmental management system certi- • Since 2004, social commitment fied according to EMAS (Eco Management in the DKB FOUNDATION and Audit Scheme) and ISO 14001 • Corporate volunteering programme for employees to support social projects and promote top and popular sports 5 | DKB Green Bond Reporting 2017 | Sustainability at DKB Core business of DKB At the centre of every banking activity is the credit In the retail banking business, DKB now serves 3.7 mil- business. For many years, DKB has deliberately focused lion customers with cost-effective account solutions, on a narrow range of industries, both geographically investment products, housing finance and consumer and in terms of topics. The majority of our clients are loans. Here, DKB acts exclusively as an online bank, active in sustainable business areas – from a social or providing its customers with resource-saving processes environmental perspective. This strict client focus forms that, with certain exceptions, can be used accessibly to a the core of DKB’s sustainable activities. large extent. Much of our business is in the residential, social infra- In the segment Renewable Energies, we are one of the structure and renewable energy sectors. In the residen- leading financing partners in Germany, with receivables tial sector, we mainly deal in credits with cooperative or totalling more than EUR 10 billion. DKB has been active municipal housing companies and are market leader in this area of business for more than 20 years and so far in Germany. Social infrastructure includes the financing has managed to increase the volume continuously. of municipal projects in public transport, healthcare or educational projects. Development of the Renewable Energy Business of DKB in EUR bn EUR 10.4 billion 12 10 8 6 4 2 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 Wind Photovoltaics Biogas 6 | DKB Green Bond Reporting 2017 | Sustainability at DKB Milestones and activities In 2017, DKB also implemented various projects that investor. For example, DKB has decided to invest up help us to progress as a sustainable company. to EUR 200 mil lion in green and sustainable bonds. In doing so, we ensure that the bonds concerned As part of our capital market activities, we issued our comply with the Green Bond Principles or Social Bond second unsecured Green Bond and, once again, met Principles, have an independent appraisal of their sus- with exceptionally high investor interest. This makes tainable quality and that regular reports are prepared. DKB one of the few commercial banks in Germany that Issuers of green or social bonds should not be active repeatedly uses this market segment for refinancing in businesses that are subject to our exclusion criteria. purposes. Additionally, we are proud to have been named the As a new feature, we also want to strengthen the most sustainable company by Focus Money and segment of sustainable securities in our role as an ServiceValue. DKB is involved in a large number of initiatives and In addition, we participate in capital market confer- associations for the further development of sustainable ences on the topic of sustainability, engage in an active topics in the financial industry. These include the Green dialogue with investors, rating agencies and scientific Bond Principles and the Social Bond Principles. They institutes, and regularly share information about our serve as a platform for issuers, investors, capital market activities. participants and non-governmental organisations to create a unified framework for green and sustainable bonds. 7 | DKB Green Bond Reporting 2017 | Sustainability at DKB Sustainability rating In order to evaluate the quality of our sustainable In the corporate rating of ISS-oekom, for example, DKB business performance, we regularly undergo rating has now been rated “B–” (good) for the third time in a processes conducted by specialised agencies. Typical- row and thus remains the Industry Leader among the ly, we achieve above-average results in cross-sectoral commercial and public banks. comparison. Industry Leader in corporate rating Further ratings and evaluations In addition, DKB was rated by the sustainability service provider imug and the DZ-Bank and achieved results ranging from good to very good. Distribution of ratings 84 companies in the industry Industry Leaders (in alphabetical order): – Deutsche Kreditbank AG (DE): B– DKB distinguished as the most sustainable – La Banque Postale SA (FR): C+ company – Landesbank Baden-Württemberg (DE): C+ Focus Money and ServiceValue have examined the sustainability of 120 financial institutions, including 14 Not prime Prime direct banks. In the overall rating, only four were rated 30 % with “very good”. DKB is perceived to be far above aver- age and sustainable. The environmental and economic 20 % sustainability, socially responsible action as an employ- er, social commitment and customer orientation were evaluated. 10 % D– D D+ C– C C+ B– B B+ A– A A+ Company Industry 8 | DKB Green Bond Reporting 2017 | Sustainability at DKB Green Bond programmes and evaluations In the course of 2017, DKB developed and launched a second Green Bond programme. As with the first programme, selected wind and solar project loans serve as the basis for refinancing via capital market products.