Shipping company Maersk has issued a 10-year €500 million green bond to fund 8 ocean-going container vessels which will be capable of operating on carbon neutral methanol by 2024.

It comes under Maersk´s Green Finance Framework with a final order book at €3.7bn and a coupon of 0.75%. Cicero Green was appointed to review Maersk´s Green Finance Framework and ultimately verify its alignment with the ICMA Green Bond Principles 2021 and the Green Loan Principles 2021 and market practices. Maersk’s Green Finance Framework has received a Cicero Medium Green shading and a governance score of Excellent.

Maersk says it intends to align its funding strategy with its goal to become carbon neutral by 2050. Patrick Jany, CFO at A.P. Moller – Maersk says:

“Issuing Green Financing Instruments is a further step to integrating sustainability into our financing operations as it is an effective tool for channelling investments to projects with positive environmental impact and thereby contributing to the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement. With this green bond, we aim at diversifying our investor base by reaching out to new investors and increasing the transparency of our ESG ambitions and performance even further towards our stakeholders”.