VANCOUVER — Telus today announced its new sustainability-linked bond framework, which aligns the company’s financing strategy with its goal of achieving operational net carbon neutrality across all of its global operations by 2030, says the company’s press release.
Developed in accordance with the International Capital Market Association’s Sustainability-Linked Bond Principles 2020 (SLBP), the framework outlines the process Telus intends to follow when issuing new sustainability-linked bonds. Leading independent environmental, social and governance (ESG) research, ratings and analytics firm Sustainalytics has reviewed Telus’s framework and is of the opinion it aligns with the SLBP, according to Telus’s press release.
A copy of the framework and Sustainalytics’s second party opinion are available here.
“Under this Framework, Telus is reinforcing its previously announced commitment to reducing absolute Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 46 per cent by 2030 from a base year of 2019. Should Telus fail to achieve this target, Telus will voluntarily offer a premium payment amount or step-up margin amount, as applicable, with further details to be specified in any relevant bond documentation,” reads the press release.
RBC Capital Markets acted as lead structuring agent for Telus’s sustainability-linked bond framework along with Scotiabank as co-structuring agent.
BCE recently announced something similar with its sustainable financing framework, which guides BCE’s issues of sustainability bonds and other sustainable financings. In May, Bell Canada announced its first sustainability bond offering.
