EMEA ESG Financing House: Barclays
Outperforming pioneer For outperforming across a notably broad range of asset classes, including equities and securitisations where environmental and social uses of proceeds remained less developed, plus complex project financings in areas such as renewable energy and green hydrogen, all underpinned by leadership in sustainability research, Barclays is IFR’s EMEA ESG Financing House of the Year.
Barclays was the most significant mover in 2024’s EMEA ESG bond league tables, LSEG data show. Having ranked seventh the previous year with a market share of 4.2%, the bank's strong showing across each of the corporate, sovereign and financial sectors carried it to a new high of fourth on a near one percentage point gain to 5%.
Its most important deals included a €1.5bn dual green and sustainability-linked bond package for Italy’s Snam, IFR’s Sustainable Issuer of the Year, on which it was ESG structuring coordinator and joint bookrunner.
The multi-instrument package “is a nice blueprint for how you could see sustainable finance continue to scale in the years to come", said Greg Cass, managing director for sustainable capital markets.
Barclays was also joint structuring adviser for ESG corporate finance landmarks in Gatwick Airport's €750m debut SLB and Austrian utility Verbund's biodiversity-focused €500m green bond, as well as bringing almost €5bn of social bonds for Motability, including sterling tranches.
Other highlights included the first Gulf sovereign green bond, for Qatar, and more standard sovereign deals for Austria, France, Germany and Italy, plus the European Union.
In EMEA sustainable loans, the bank remains a top 20 player, though it failed to break into the top 10 despite structuring significant real estate transactions for AIMCo/Ridgeback, Primary Health Properties and Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield.
In project finance it was lead arranger for £655m of acquisition financing for the Moray East offshore windfarm and a £120m revolving credit facility for onshore renewables developer OnPath.
It also advised on UK Infrastructure Bank’s first green hydrogen deal, a £56m convertible loan note for GeoPura.
One of Barclays' key ESG transactions in 2024 was unlabelled. But the £7bn rights issue for the UK’s National Grid, on which it was joint global coordinator, sponsor, underwriter and corporate broker, together with JP Morgan, was nonetheless a landmark in sustainable equity placements.
As the UK’s largest equity raise in almost 15 years and the utility sector’s biggest globally, the deal will help fund National Grid’s £60bn capital expenditure for 2025–29. National Grid has committed to deploy as much as 85% of its vast capex plan on investments that qualify as green under the EU Taxonomy of sustainable activities – particularly grid upgrades to accommodate renewable energy.
“Ultimately, the impact is imperative as you think about what the next phase of the [energy] transition looks like,” said Cass.
Another standout area of Barclays’ effort during 2024 was securitisation, where the bank delivered a series of firsts for the EMEA region. This push built on its strengths in the more developed US ESG asset-backed market.
The bank has “spent a lot of time this year trying … to build out a variety of products” in this growth area, said Cass.
A landmark deal was structuring EMEA’s inaugural ESG securitisation of data centre assets. The £600m secured green collateral bond, including a £100m variable funding note, refinances US issuer Vantage Data Centers' 148MW campus near Cardiff, Wales.
In addition, Barclays arranged the UK’s debut asset-backed financing of residential renewable energy as senior lender to a £250m warehouse facility for Hometree. The UK equipment and finance house is set to launch public bonds within two years against its portfolio of loans and leases for solar PV panels, heat pumps and battery storage.
A particularly strong independent sustainability research effort supports Barclays’ ESG financing credentials. The team, which includes a climate scientist and public policy analyst, is a rare cross-asset class and pan-region undertaking that delivers analysis in areas like ESG fund flows and impacts of new regulation, as well as thematic research.
“Sometimes fixed-income investors are faster to pick up on topics, sometimes equity are, and so having that cross-assets approach allows us to have the best of both worlds,” said Maggie O'Neal, head of sustainable investing research.
Speaking before the California wildfires in January 2025, she cited Barclays’ research on extreme weather events and physical risk as exemplifying this. It has also developed a “heat stress tool” to demonstrate the impact of global warming scenarios across geographic regions.
Barclays also collaborated with the World Bank on sovereign emissions research, holding joint events and engaging with investors on this nascent topic in which methodologies are still very uncertain.
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