To fund UK’s biggest ever drought resilience project Anglian Water has become the first UK company to issue a corporate green bond of £225m in the Canadian ‘maple’ bond market.
The bond raised will specifically fund Anglian Water’s Strategic Pipeline Alliance, delivering a brand new network of hundreds of miles of large-scale interconnecting pipelines to move water to drier areas of our region, alongside other future resilience projects identified by Anglian Water. SPA is the biggest infrastructure programme in Anglian Water’s history and one of the largest infrastructure projects in the UK. On completion, the outcome will be improved the climate resilience for water supplies across the Anglian region.
Crucially, flexibility in moving water more freely around the region helps improve resilience to droughts and enables the company to reduce abstraction from the environment in water-stressed areas. Reducing abstraction is one of the most important contributions to protecting the environment.
This year’s driest July on record since the 1911 and the driest summer since 1976 highlights the importance of such schemes that ensure resilience to drought for future generations and support customers and businesses, including critical industries such as food production.
Anglian Water’s Group Treasurer Jane Pilcher said: “The impacts of climate change are acutely impacting the water industry in the UK, and the world over. Ours is the driest region in the UK and particularly vulnerable to climate change. Therefore reducing our carbon emissions and adapting to the climate emergency is embedded in everything we do. Spend on resilience to climate change and environmental protection is vitally important. This focus is why 100 per cent of our debt raised in 2021/22 was sustainable finance.”
Anglian Water’s capital investment is financed by sustainable debt finance as well as through shareholders, supported by stable regulatory environmental. Jane added: “By holding ourself accountable to the green bond principles we are delivering enhanced environmental and social benefits.
“The Maple bond market is a stable and growing sustainable finance market, so for us it’s presented an opportunity to continue our sustainable financing strategy.”
