NTT planning to issue $2.7 billion ‘green bond’

Yesterday, Japan’s NTT announced it will issue $2.7 billion of so-called ‘green bonds’, the funds from which will be used to help reduce the operator’s greenhouse gas emissions and increase their investment in renewable energy. 

 

These green bonds will function much like any other corporate bond, in this case featuring three tranches with maturities of three, five, and ten years. but the funds raised will be limited to environmentally friendly projects.

 

NTT currently has ambitious targets of reaching carbon neutrality by 2040, achieved primarily through the use of more renewable energy and upgrading their network infrastructure to reduce energy consumption. As part of this plan, NTT has said that it will invest around $4 billion in renewable power plants in the decade leading up to 2030. By this milestone, NTT aims for its operational electricity usage to be 80% renewable.

 

The speed at which sustainability is rising up the telecoms agenda is clear to see here; NTT in fact issued green bonds last year, though at a much smaller scale of around $360 million.

 

NTT Docomo recently announced that it would aim to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by 2030, with SoftBank also matching this target. KDDI, despite accelerating their shift into renewable energy and making other operational changes, is still targeting 2050 for net-zero CO2 emissions.

 

NTT is beginning to make a habit of these bond issuances, having last year launched the country’s largest ever corporate bond sale, raising just under $10 billion. This came shortly after the company announced it would buyout its majority-owned mobile unit Docomo for $40 billion in September 2020.