Anglian Water issued more than £1.8 billion of sustainable debt instruments by the end of 2021, according to its recently published Sustainable Finance Impact Report 2022.
Anglian Water was the first major utility to issue a Green Bond, with its £250 million bond in 2017, and has since become the first water company in the world to issue a sustainability-linked bond tied to net zero commitments, in July 2021. It plans to invest more than £3 billion in its region, which covers the East of England and Hartlepool, by 2025.
All of the company’s debt investment in 2021/22 was raised as sustainable finance, enabling the company to save more than 180,000 tonnes of carbon through Green Bond-funded projects, which also improved resilience to climate change, water quality at source, and biodiversity.
This includes the vast majority of its £800 million Water Industry National Environment Programme (WINEP) for 2020-25, which was partially funded by a recent £25.5 million Green Bond issuance, with more sustainable finance instruments planned over the coming years. The company’s WINEP focuses on protecting the East of England’s much-loved rivers, including many precious chalk streams, as well as its wider environment. Anglian Water and its alliances have so far delivered 1,184 schemes through the WINEP, including efforts to develop innovative phosphorus reduction methods, reduce abstraction from watercourses, and protect and increase local biodiversity.
Sustainable debt also helps fund the company’s efforts to respond to its acute water resources challenge. The East of England is the driest region in the UK, receiving on average a third less rainfall than the rest of the country. It is also one of the country’s fastest growing regions, and its dry, flat landscape means it is particularly vulnerable to the growing impacts of climate change. Hundreds of kilometres of new interconnecting water pipelines, partially funded by sustainable finance, will keep taps running and toilets flushing across the company’s region for years to come by moving water from wetter parts of the region to those in need of more water.
For more information, please contact the Press Office on 0871 677 0123.
About Anglian Water
Anglian Water supplies drinking water to 4.3 million customers across the East of England and collects and treats used water from over 6 million people. We operate within the largest geographical region of England and Wales.
Water is our business. It’s our job to handle it with care and balance the needs of our customers with those of the environment around us.
Our ethos is ‘Love Every Drop’, because it’s what we do. Every drop of water is precious, and we believe it’s everyone’s responsibility to look after it. We’re constantly discovering new ways to keep ahead of a changing world, by planning for the future, and exploring new ideas to meet our customers’ individual needs today and tomorrow.