The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is planning green financing option for the $13 billion worth of renewable energy (RE) investments in the next four years to pace the country toward a decarbonized future.
“Our country needs around $13 billion for renewable energy investments by 2025 … renewable energy and energy efficiency can provide over 90 percent of the reduction in energy-related carbon dioxide emissions,” SEC Chairman Emilio B. Aquino noted during the Philippine Dealing & Exchange Corporation’s (PDEx) listing for the first tranche of the P15 billion ASEAN green bonds of the Energy Development Corporation (EDC).
In Aquino’s pitch for green financing on RE investments, he said that as early as 2018, the SEC had already published the guidelines “on the issuance of green bonds under the ASEAN green bonds standard in the Philippines.”
The overall intent of that, he said, is “to encourage companies to raise funds for eligible green projects and support sustainable growth in ASEAN.”
Aquino further indicated that as of June this year, “the total cumulative issued ASEAN-labeled green social and sustainability bonds amounted to $12 billion - of which $4.2 billion or 35 percent were issued by Philippine companies.”
The SEC chief stressed “we are glad that more Filipino companies now recognize the importance of sustainable finance and choose to raise funds by issuing ASEAN green social and sustainability bonds.”
With the first tranche of the EDC’s ASEAN green bond issuance, “this figure will be increased by P5 billion or around $100 million,” the SEC chief emphasized.
In the propounded ‘green financing’ recourse of RE investors, including issuance of ASEAN green bonds, Aquino said the Commission is highly supportive of this initiative “that is in line with greening our economy and mitigating climate change risks.”
For his part, PDEx President and CEO Antonio A. Nakpil qualified that the growth of ‘ASEAN green bonds’ as added instrument in capital markets could stimulate further interest of “woke investors” into supporting the funding needs of green energy projects.
“The levels of over-subscription to each issuance, not just for corporate bonds, indicate the level of liquidity of domestic investors, some of that possibly focusable for socially responsible investment program,” he pointed out.
On the maiden green bonds issuance pursued by EDC, Nakpil asserted that this must serve as inspiration for many corporates to “live the green life”, as environmental, social and governance (ESG) principles are also incorporated in business philosophies.
“We should continue ‘greenness’ and success in all endeavors and hope other issuers will follow its (EDC’s) lead,” the PDEx chief executive reiterated; with him highlighting that EDC as a company “was born green, and has been walking the green walk long before financial and capital markets even began talking the green talk.”