ESG Segment
Borsa Italiana, as a leading international markets infrastructure provider and as a facilitator of the dialogue between issuers, sell side and investors, is ideally placed to help promote good practice across the industry.
Within the field of its mission, it has joined the Sustainable Stock Exchanges Initiative, backed by the United Nations, with the aim of supporting the transition to a low environmental impact economy. Furthermore, Borsa Italiana is a member of ICMA, the International Capital Markets Association, promoter of the Green Bonds Principles, the social Bond Principles and the Sustainability Bond Guidelines.
In the last years LSEG has carried on its mission in two different ways:
- on one side, promoting the Guidance for issuers to assist them on integrating ESG principles into investor reporting and communication, increasingly crucial factors for institutional and retail investors to be considered in their decision making;
- on the other hand, providing investors the following tools to enable them to identify, analysis and incorporate climate and sustainability considerations into their investment process:
a. dedicated segments for ESG instruments;
b. the list of green and/or social bonds listed on MOT and Euronext Access Milan markets.
In relations to this particular initiative, starting from March 2017, Borsa Italiana has decided to offer institutional and retail investors the possibility of clearly identify a list of instruments whose proceeds are destined to financing projects which benefit or impact environmental ("Green Bonds") and/or social ("Social Bonds") projects.
Bonds and other debt securities may be eligible for Green bonds, and/or Social bonds, Sustainability bonds and Sustainabilitylinked bonds where a third party certifies the environmental and/or social nature of the projects being financed through the issuance of these financial instruments and/or the transition plans envisaged by the issuers to make their activities more sustainable, or the presence of financial and/or structural features in the bonds that may vary depending on whether or not the issuer achieves certain predefined sustainability goals.
Borsa Italiana is also conscious of the importance of so called “Climate-aligned” bonds, issued by companies belonging to such sectors supporting the transition to a low environmental impact economy.