Standard Chartered has raised €1 billion through its first dedicated green bond to support renewable energy, green buildings and other climate-aligned investments across Asia, Africa and the Middle East, as the bank expands its sustainable finance footprint into regions most pressed by climate and development needs.
The London-headquartered lender confirmed the issuance on January 8, saying the bond proceeds will be allocated to projects that cut emissions, improve climate resilience and strengthen environmental infrastructure in emerging and developing economies.
The bond is Standard Chartered’s fifth thematic issue and follows a €1 billion social bond in 2025 that channeled capital into low-income countries. This time, the bank is concentrating exclusively on green activities, reflecting growing pressure on global financial institutions to direct more capital to transition priorities and climate-exposed nations that often lack affordable financing. The bank said its sustainable finance asset pool now stands at $17.4 billion in green assets, spread across more than 350 projects.
The portfolio covers renewable power generation, buildings designed to reduce energy consumption, waste-to-resource investments and water management systems that aim to reduce losses and increase long-term supply security. More than 70 percent of these assets are located in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, signalling where the institution sees climate needs and financial impact converging.
Bank officers described the move as a practical extension of Standard Chartered’s role in serving global capital markets while operating primarily in emerging regions. Diego De Giorgi, the bank’s group chief financial officer, said the issuance underscores the bank’s capacity to link large pools of capital to geographies where investment gaps remain significant. He argued that connecting Western capital markets to transition projects abroad is essential if global decarbonisation is to proceed at the speed governments have committed to under the Paris Agreement.
One of the most striking dimensions of this issuance is its scale and market appetite. Orders reached nearly €3.9 billion, almost four times the value offered, illustrating growing investor interest in green-labelled debt and the belief that transition investments outside Western markets offer both climate and financial reward.
Global sustainable bond markets crossed $3 trillion cumulatively in 2025 according to figures from multilateral development banks, but Africa remains a marginal beneficiary, accounting for less than 3 percent of labelled bond issuances. Instruments like Standard Chartered’s, routed partly into African projects, begin to close this disparity.
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Marisa Drew, the bank’s chief sustainability officer, said that each dollar invested in lower-income energy markets offsets significantly more emissions relative to mature economies. She used the example of Indonesia, where renewable energy still displaces coal, noting that emissions avoided there could be roughly ten times higher than equivalent capacity added in France. The same logic applies in many African economies, where fossil fuels remain entrenched and access to finance determines whether utilities build renewable plants or extend reliance on diesel and heavy fuel oil.
The relevance to Africa is immediate. Several of the continent’s largest energy markets, including Kenya, South Africa, Egypt and Ghana, are expanding their renewable programmes as they respond to rising electricity demand and seek alternatives to costly thermal assets. Kenya alone secured close to $1 billion in climate-aligned finance commitments in 2025 through concessional loans and blended finance facilities to upgrade grid infrastructure and add wind and geothermal capacity, according to government and development lender disclosures. Yet the financing requirement to meet clean power targets across sub-Saharan Africa remains steep.
The International Energy Agency estimates that annual clean energy investment in Africa must rise from roughly $30 billion today to more than $120 billion by 2030 if the continent is to meet development goals while reducing emissions intensity. Banks such as Standard Chartered thus form a critical bridge between bankable projects and capital pools that are often cautious about frontier markets.
The implications extend beyond energy. The bank listed green buildings and circular economy solutions among uses for the funds, signalling rising interest in sustainable construction and waste recovery as investable opportunities. Several African cities, including Nairobi, Kigali and Lagos, are tightening building standards and experimenting with construction materials that reduce carbon footprints.
Waste-to-resource initiatives are beginning to attract early capital as well, with firms converting plastics and organics into fuel and industrial inputs. If the cost of capital declines because major lenders commit more green funding, these projects could scale faster and attract more players.
Standard Chartered’s announcement also demonstrates how investor appetite is changing. The oversubscription suggests that sustainability-labelled securities are no longer niche and that bondholders are increasingly willing to participate in emerging-market climate financing if governance and reporting standards are clear. For African policymakers and developers seeking international investment, the signal is encouraging: transparent frameworks and robust monitoring can unlock deeper pools of capital, even where risk perceptions remain high.
The bank has not yet released a full geographic breakdown of where funds from this issuance will land, nor specific African projects likely to benefit. However, the institution’s recent financing record shows consistent support for renewable programs across East Africa, commercial building retrofits in South Africa and early-stage infrastructure in West Africa. If the pattern holds, several African markets could feature in the deployment pipeline.
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