Today, the Republic of Austria published its Green Investor Report 2024, the annual report on the use of proceeds and the climate and environmental impact achieved by the federal government's green funding.
In 2024, the Republic of Austria issued new green financing instruments with a volume of EUR 6.23 bn. In January 2024, for example, the two outstanding Green Government Bonds - 2.90% RAGB 2023-2029 (G) and 1.85% RAGB 2022-2049 (G) - were tapped as part of a triple syndication. This was the world's first triple syndication of a sovereign in which two outstanding Green Bonds were tapped.
The green pillar of the Republic of Austria's financing strategy was also expanded further last year: In April 2024, the federal government's new savings product for retail investors - Bundesschatz (www.bundesschatz.at) - was launched, which is also available in green format with tenors of 6 months and 4 years. This makes the Republic of Austria the first sovereign in the world to offer a green money market product for retail investors.
The total green expenditures of the federal government for the budget years 2023 and 2024, according to the ICMA method, amounted to EUR 5.7 bn and EUR 6.3 bn respectively. Republic of Austria has thus the highest share of green budgetary expenditures in relation to GDP of all sovereign green bond issuers worldwide.
Green budgetary expenditures from 2023 (amounting to EUR 2.9 bn) and 2024 (amounting to EUR 3.3 bn) were used to allocate the EUR 6.23 bn financed in 2024. Based on the budget data currently available, a green funding volume of over EUR 6.0 bn is expected for 2025.
As in previous years, this report is a combined allocation and impact report. It provides information on the use of proceeds (allocation report) and contains an analysis of the environmental impact (impact report).
To make it easier for investors to analyse the allocation and impact figures, a new Green Investor Spreadsheet has been set-up this year, containing all relevant data in machine-readable format.
The impact report provides information on the environmental impact for 96.6% of the allocated amounts. The financed projects lead to a total reduction/avoidance of 3.4 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year over their useful life and the projects financed in the areas of "renewable energies" and "energy efficiency" enable annual energy savings of 1.6 million MWh.
The Green Investor Report was prepared by the Green Bond Board Management (Federal Ministry of Finance, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Climate- and Environmental Protection, Regions and Water Management and the Austrian Treasury) in cooperation with the Environment Agency Austria, which prepared the impact analysis with the involvement of other ministries and organisations (e.g. ÖBB Infrastructure). The Republic of Austria was supported by Deutsche Bank as advisor in the preparation of its third Green Investor Report.
The external review was carried out as part of a second party opinion by ISS Corporate.