Berlin Hyp becomes partner of the Climate Bonds Initiative and is publishing its first annual Green Pfandbrief reporting

Since issuing its first Green Pfandbrief last year, Berlin Hyp has exchanged numerous ideas with the Climate Bonds Initiative about refinancing sustainable capital market instruments.

This cooperation will now be strategically sealed with a partnership. “We want to further expedite the rapid growth of the green bond market. The Climate Bonds Initiative has already achieved much in the past to make sustainable securities investments more prominent among an increasingly broad investor base and has set significant standards. We would like to support them with their efforts in future. At the same time, we hope to generate an intensive mutual transfer of knowledge on energy-efficient and sustainable real estate,” commented Gero Bergmann, Member of the Board of Management of Berlin Hyp.

“We warmly welcome the partnership with Berlin Hyp,” said Sean Kidney, CEO of the Climate Bonds Initiative. “We have won a supporter who has achieved wonderful pioneering work with the issue of the first Green Pfandbrief and look to benefit from the bank’s expertise in the covered bond market, as well as its many years’ of experience in financing green buildings. Together, we aim to create market momentum so that more covered bond issuers utilise this highly suitable funding instrument in future for refinancing sustainable real estate, and actively participate in implementing the resolutions of the COP 21 – as Berlin Hyp is already doing today.”

First annual Green Pfandbrief reporting: increase in green building financing in Berlin Hyp’s mortgage cover funds by more than 50 %

In time for the first anniversary of the issue of the Green Pfandbrief, Berlin Hyp is publishing its first annual reporting on the development of green building financing in its mortgage cover funds. The volume increased from € 657 million on 27 April 2015 to € 1,021 million as of 29 February 2016. The increase includes real estate financing projects which were already in the cover funds but were not yet identified as sustainable at the time of the issue, as well as five new suitable real estate financing projects since the issue which are covered. “In view of the positive development of the portfolio, I am confident that we will be able to place the next green bond much more quickly than we thought possible one year ago,” added Bergmann.

With its annual Green Pfandbrief reporting, Berlin Hyp is the first German commercial bank to publish an impact reporting, an estimate of the CO₂ savings generated by refinanced loans for the Green Pfandbrief.
Bergmann explains: “Depending on which benchmark is used, with every million nominal value of the Green Pfandbrief between 6.9 and 34.8 tons of CO₂ are saved per year – an environmental added value that makes us proud."