In addition to developments in legislation and regulations, their feeling that “everyone must do their fair share and take personal responsibility ” underlies the development of the Green Finance Framework (GFF) for Vastned. This framework is used to raise funding that can be allocated to sustainable and energy-efficient buildings. Vastned indicates that it has developed the GFF to align its financial objectives with its sustainability objectives. Using the framework allows Vastned to issue various green financing instruments, including green bonds, green credit facilities and other green debt instruments. This enables Vastned to refinance commercial and residential real estate that contribute to the preservation of historic city centres. Reinier adds that “the framework forces us to stick to what we say, and be disciplined when it comes to sustainability. In addition, retail real estate is not the easiest to finance at the moment, but when we take sustainability into consideration, banks are more interested. That’s a positive development.”
Under this framework, Vastned has agreed on a Green Revolving Credit Facility (RCF) in which ABN AMRO and Rabobank each participate in for € 20 million. Vastned’s stakeholders reacted positively to this. On the one hand because, from a purely financial point of view, liquidity is now very important, partly because ofthe uncertain times due to COVID-19. On the other hand, because sustainability, or ESG, is getting more and more attention from analysts and investors, such financing is received positively.