Principles

Investors are increasingly calling for transparency, integrity and consistency when investing in sustainability related debt capital products. The Australian Debt Capital Market has heeded this call through the application of the International Capital Market Association (ICMA) Principles. Please see the attached for AFMA's full market statement of support and use as the Australian standard. For more information, please contact David Love, General Counsel.

 

About the ICMA Principles and their use across international debt capital markets

ICMA is a not-for-profit association which has been in operation for 50 years serving international capital markets. ICMA has promoted the development of the international capital and securities markets, pioneering the rules, principles and recommendations which have laid the foundations for their successful operation. AFMA is proud to have ICMA as an Affiliate Member of AFMA and we value our associations' close working relationship.

 

The ICMA Principles are designed to be industry wide, thus green, social, sustainability or sustainability-linked bond issuers and investors as well as banks, and are currently in use in over 40 countries. The ICMA Principles are comprised of the Green Bond Principles (GBP), Social Bond Principles (SBP), Sustainability Bond Guidelines (SBG) and the Sustainability-Linked Bond Principles (SLBP). The GBP and SBP provide thorough guidelines and standards for issuance covering, definitions, use of proceeds, process for project evaluation and selection, management of proceeds, reporting, frameworks for transparency and external reviews. The SLBP provides clear definitions, selection of Key Performance Indicators, calibration of Sustainability Performance Targets, bond characteristics, reporting and verification. While the SBG has been developed to provide transparency and standards for the market that has developed for bonds aligned to both the GBP and the SPB. More on the ICMA Principles can be found on the ICMA website.