Crédit Agricole CIB recently closed a $1.2 billion Sustainability-Linked Export Prepayment Facility with Suzano International Finance B.V., acting as Sustainability Structuring Agent, Joint Lead Arranger and Bookrunner.
Suzano is a Brazilian multinational company that manufactures pulp, paper, and other products from responsibly-grown renewable sources. It’s the largest pulp producer in the world and one of the largest paper producers in Latin America.
The facility features a single KPI focused on hectares of priority area connected via Suzano-constructed corridors for biodiversity conservation in the Cerrado, Atlantic Forest and Amazon biomes in Brazil. The corridors and the fragments are selected based on careful criteria to ensure the greatest biodiversity impact. For fragments, Suzano focuses on connecting larger areas with greater resource diversity and higher connectivity value for the landscape. Similarly, pathway selection is guided by a resistance matrix, which favors land uses more permeable to wildlife, among other factors. The KPI and 2030 Sustainability Performance Targets are detailed in Suzano’s updated Sustainability-Linked Financing Framework, which secured a positive Second Party Opinion from S&P. Through this structure, Suzano demonstrates a clear commitment to addressing complex challenges related to biodiversity loss and habitat degradation in Brazil.
“Financing for nature falls short of what is needed to halt and reverse biodiversity loss and few corporates have the capacity to make a direct impact in this area,” said Romina Reversi, Head of Sustainable Investment Banking for the Americas at Crédit Agricole CIB. “Through this facility, Suzano sets a clear example for how biodiversity commitments can be structured as sophisticated KPIs to support companies in achieving ambitious biodiversity goals and we hope this paves a path for other issuers to adopt similar approaches.”
“In 2020, Suzano became the first-ever issuer of a Sustainability-Linked Bond in the Americas and has continued to reinforce its position as a sustainable finance pioneer through the development of innovative structures and an iterative sustainability-linked financing approach,” added Jean Baptiste Goethals, Head of Brazil Coverage. “This facility, the second of its kind where Crédit Agricole CIB acts as Sustainable Structuring Agent, further demonstrates Suzano’s ambition to put sustainability at the center of its strategy and our commitment to support one of our prime clients within its Brazilian portfolio in such developments.”
The closing of Suzano’s facility marks the continuation of an important relationship for Crédit Agricole CIB’s franchise and further solidifies the bank’s status as a market leader in sustainable financing.
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