Border to Coast, the Leeds-headquartered LGPS pool is set to launch a new sustainability-linked bond fund
The vehicle, due to be launched next year, aims to offer its partner funds access to green, social and sustainability debt.
As part of the planned launch, the pool is looking to hire a responsible investment manager who will help shape and deliver its approach to verification and impact reporting for green, social and sustainability bonds and to develop its approach to incorporating responsible investment across the pool’s wider fixed income offering, a spokesperson for the pool told Room151.
The pool did not yet disclose whether the fund would be internally managed or involve allocations to third party funds but the new role will also involve the monitoring of third-party verification providers and assess the credibility of issuer-level sustainability disclosures.
Border to Coast currently offers three fixed income funds, allocating to Sterling-denominated Index-Linked Bonds, Investment-Grade Credit and Multi-asset Credit.
The green or sustainability-linked market is currently dominated by European issuers with Europe being on track to be the largest green bond issuer worldwide.
Issuance of sustainability-linked debt has dropped somewhat since its peak in 2021, according to World Bank data, but last year, more than $1trn in sustainability-linked debt had been issued, indicating that the market might be on track to pick up again.
