Kuwait’s largest financial institution, National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) has launched its Sustainable Financing Framework as it continues to build a market-leading position in sustainable development.
According to the statement, it enables and promotes responsible business practices to help steer the economy towards long-term value creation, as well as supports Kuwait National Adaptation Plan (NAP) for tackling climate change.
The bank said that “the framework details the four core components of the International Capital Market Association (ICMA) and Loan Market Association (LMA) principles, namely, Use of Proceeds, Process for Project Evaluation and Selection, Management of Proceeds and Reporting.”
It is also aligned with the Green Bond Principles (GBP), Social Bond Principles (SBP), and Sustainability Bond Guidelines (SBG) published in June 2021 by the International Capital Market Association (ICMA).
Isam Al Sager Vice Chairman & Group CEO NBK
“The aim of establishing our sustainable financing framework is to integrate environmental and social governance standards into all our operations, in addition guides our transitions in support of a more sustainable and low carbon economy, all while supporting Kuwait’s sustainable growth enshrined in New Kuwait Vision 2035. NBK’s sustainable financing framework is an important step in bringing NBK closer to global capital markets, further strengthening NBK’s leading market position. NBK has developed internal targets to reduce gross operational emissions by 25 percent by the year 2025. The Bank is also considering various technologies and R&D opportunities to expand its dependencies on renewable energy beyond 2025 with an aspiration to become net-zero operationally by 2035. Being a certified LEED Gold building, significantly improving all environmental factors that we collect, measure and report, including greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and paper and plastic recycling.”
Under the Sustainable Financing Framework, NBK can issue three types of instruments;
Green Financing Instruments – The proceeds of which are exclusively allocated to Green Asset Categories.
Social Financing Instruments – The proceeds of which are exclusively allocated to Social Asset Categories.
Sustainability Financing Instruments – The proceeds of which are allocated to both Green or Social Asset Categories.
As per the statement, NBK has expanded the scope of its sustainability disclosures and its commitment towards the principles of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) as the main framework for reporting, in addition to aligning its reporting to UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Kuwait’s National Development, and Boursa Kuwait’s voluntary sustainability disclosures.
