Santander to Build ESG Team as Part of Green Financing Push
Santander to Build ESG Team as Part of Green Financing Push
(Bloomberg) -- Banco Santander SA’s investment bank plans to open a department aimed at pushing socially conscious investment deals as Spain’s top lender seeks to expand in green financing.
Steffen Kram, currently a managing director at the unit, will lead the new team from London, according to people familiar with the matter. Building from an initial size of a handful of people, the group will work with other departments to help promote green bonds and sustainable initiatives in project finance, syndicated loans and capital and export finance.
Chairman Ana Botin, who traveled to Greenland earlier this year to observe the impact of climate change on glaciers, has made a commitment to environmental, social and governance values a priority for the bank. The lender, which last year set a target of mobilizing 120 billion euros ($142 billion) of green financing by 2025, has raised 19 billion euros of that total so far.
A spokesperson for Santander declined to comment.
Governments, agencies and companies have already sold the equivalent of 98.7 billion euros of green and sustainable bonds this year in Europe’s syndicated debt market, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Botin said in a Bloomberg TV interview in January that the lender will no longer finance new coal projects in Poland although she said it will continue to be involved in existing deals.
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