CTP, developer, owner, and manager of industrial and logistics properties by gross lettable area (GLA), has achieved its full allocation of €4.25 billion in Green Bonds to support its portfolio of sustainable business parks.
CTP raised €4.25 billion through eight Green Bond issuances from October 2020 to January 2022, significantly decreasing CTP’s overall financing costs.
The net proceeds from all eight Green Bond issuances have been used to (re-)finance a select pool of green buildings that meet key sustainability criteria set out in CTP’s Green Bond Framework, with the full amount now allocated to 251 buildings across the portfolio. To qualify, a building must be certified BREEAM Very Good or above: 65.4% of the green buildings are rated Very Good; 30.0% are Excellent; and 4.6% are Outstanding.
These include CTPark Bucharest West, which at 314ha is the largest industrial park in Central and Eastern Europe and contains Romania’s first BREEAM Outstanding warehouse, with clients including Maersk and Kuhne + Nagel; the 77k sqm CTPark Warsaw South, BREEAM Excellent and let to Fiege among others; and CTPark Budapest West, home to Hungary’s first ever BREEAM Outstanding building and featuring a heat pump system to provide gas-free heating, with clients including TeqBall and Gorenje.
Most of CTP’s Green Asset Pool is located in the Czech Republic (101 green buildings, 52.2% of total proceeds allocated), while Romania has the second-highest concentration of green buildings (98 green buildings, 26.8% of total proceeds allocated).
Other customers benefitting from CTP’s green buildings include Quehenberger, Rhenus, Thermo Fischer Scientific, Inventec, DSV, DHL, and Lenovo.
The Green Bonds allocation was independently verified by Sustainalytics, the leading rating agency that assesses a listed company’s ESG performance. Earlier this year Sustainalytics provided CTP with an industry-leading ESG Risk rating of 10.0, indicating “negligible risk”, lower than many peers in the pan-European logistics space and ranked 75th out of 1,048 companies in the real estate sector.
The Sustainalytics rating comes as CTP achieved a score of 69 for both standing investment as well as development activities in the 2023 GRESB Real Estate Assessment—the global standard for ESG benchmarking and reporting for companies investing directly in real estate.
Adam Targowski, Group Head of ESG Management, CTP, said: “CTP has long been a pioneer in the development of sustainable industrial and logistics space and our long-term goal is to be fully carbon neutral— not just operationally, but through the entire asset lifecycle. Green Bonds form an important part of our strategy to deliver our ESG ambitions and we are pleased to have fully allocated the €4.25 billion raised to date through this innovative form of green finance. We’re delighted that our long-term commitment to continually raising the sustainability standards across our portfolio has been recognized with an industry leading ‘negligible risk’ ESG rating. Ultimately, our highly sustainable buildings and commitment to rolling out renewable energy generation on our sites means we can lower the carbon footprint of our CTParks, benefiting the planet and in the process helping our clients to meet their own ESG goals.”
The Sustainalytics rating comes after CTP secured €200 million in financing from the European Investment Bank (EIB) in September for the roll-out of a large-scale programme of solar panel installation across its European business park portfolio.
CTP, which has a portfolio of 11.2 million sqm (GLA) across Europe and a growing focus on Western European markets like Germany, Austria and the Netherlands, is targeting rapid growth in the generation of renewable energy across its portfolio and has established its own energy company to oversee an ambitious programme of solar PV installation.
Earlier in the year, CTP published its first Sustainability Report, which transparently sets out how to company is progressing against its ESG commitments and how they are aligned with EU Taxonomy requirements. The report is aligned with Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standards, the EPRA sustainability Best Practices Recommendations, and the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).
CTP has long been a pioneer in the development of sustainable, energy efficient I&L buildings. In 2013 it was the first to develop a BREEAM ‘Outstanding’ building outside the UK and was the first European industrial and logistics developer to undertake BREEAM certification of its entire portfolio, comprising over 200 buildings. Since 2021, all of CTP’s buildings are built to high BREEAM standards – ‘Very Good’ or better, providing assurance that they are energy efficient.
The company’s ESG Strategy is focused on four key areas of activity: striving to be climate positive; embedding its business parks in local communities; stimulating social impact and well-being; and conducting business with integrity. CTP has earned a ‘Negligible Risk’ ESG rating and is ranked inside the top 2% of companies globally by Sustainalytics, underlining the company’s long-term commitment to being a sustainable business. CTP is also included in the AEX ESG index, which includes the 25 companies within the AEX and AMX indices that demonstrate the highest ESG performance.
