LGX Corner - May

Welcome to the May edition of the LGX roundup!

This month, we bring you 1,000 sustainable bonds on LGX, the latest initiatives from China Construction Bank, new LGX DataHub features and much more.

Earlier this month, LGX hit the 1,000 sustainable bonds mark with the latest Global Climate Awareness Bond from the European Investment Bank, a 10-year USD 1.5 bn issuance. For the occasion, our CEO Julie Becker rang the bell with Luxembourg Minister of Finance Pierre Gramegna, Ricardo Mourinho Félix, EIB's Vice-President for Treasury and Funding, and Aldo Romani, EIB’s Head of Sustainability Funding.

The story of LGX began in 2016 when we decided to create a platform to facilitate sustainable investment. Almost five years later, LGX counts 170 issuers from 35 different countries, and the 1,000 bonds displayed on the platform are raising over EUR 500 billion for green, social and sustainable development projects across the world.

“This 1,000th sustainable bond illustrates the role that Luxembourg’s sustainable finance ecosystem is playing globally in raising the public and private capital needed to achieve the objectives of the Paris Accord on Climate Change and the Sustainable Development Goals,” commented Luxembourg Minister of Finance Pierre Gramegna.

A year ago, in May 2020, we launched the LGX Academy to boost sustainable finance education. Since then, it has been a tremendous success: expert lecturers have trained almost 170 individuals from various backgrounds and industries, such as finance students, Big Four firms, stock exchanges, local Luxembourg associations, banks, and asset management companies.

Through various in-house course cohorts and tailor-made courses, the LGX Academy has an international reach: our lecturers have helped participants from countries spreading from Germany, France and Switzerland to Russia and Cabo Verde gain a deeper understanding of sustainable finance.

In a virtual Ring the Bell ceremony in the presence of Claude Marx, Director General of Luxembourg’s financial supervisory authority CSSF, we celebrated the listing of China Construction Bank’s latest green bond on our exchange.

The EUR 800 m issuance is the first green bond issued by CCB under its updated Green, Social, Sustainability and Sustainability-Linked Bond Framework. Now displayed on LGX, it is also the first international green bond from a Chinese issuer listed and traded on our exchange this year.

The bond is aligned with China’s targets of reaching peak carbon emissions by 2030 and becoming carbon neutral by 2060. The proceeds will help finance 23 sustainable water management projects, including a river training project in Yunnan Province and a wastewater treatment project in Guangdong Province.

Only a couple of weeks after the ring the bell ceremony, China Construction Bank celebrated the launch of their CCB-Wind Green ESG Bond Index, the first bond index displayed on LuxSE to combine securities from both China’s inter-bank market and stock exchange markets.

The index is China's first primary market green bond index to combine carbon neutrality and ESG and is now displayed on our exchange, giving international investors increased access to China's green bond market. Jointly created by China Construction Bank Corp, Wind Information Technology Co, and the International Institute of Green Finance at the Central University of Finance and Economics, the index includes AAA-rated bonds, which aim to finance green and carbon neutrality projects, and which are issued on the China Interbank Bond Market, Shanghai Stock Exchange or Shenzhen Stock Exchange.

To provide you with the best experience possible, our experts are continuously working on enhancing the LGX DataHub, our centralised database of structured data on over 3,200 sustainable bonds.

Our latest updates include:

These developments further facilitate the process of analysing and comparing sustainability data and give you more time to focus on what truly matters: your investment strategy.

Andorra's inaugural EUR 500 m sustainability bond, issued under Luxembourg law, was listed on our exchange this month. The bond raises financing for healthcare, education and projects linked to the circular economy, among other eligible projects.

Swedish firm EQT also made its debut on LGX with a EUR 500 m sustainability-linked bond (SLB), the first SLB from a private equity firm. With this issuance, the firm committed to targets linked to greenhouse gas reduction by 2023 and more gender-balanced boards by 2026.

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