Nordea issued EUR 3.6 billion in sustainable bonds during 2024, comprising green, green covered, and sustainability-linked loan bonds, bringing the bank's total outstanding sustainable issuance above EUR 14 billion, according to its Sustainable Funding Report published on 2 June 2025. The figure marks a continuing expansion of the Danish bank's position as one of the Nordic region's most active sustainable debt issuers, consolidating a platform it has built steadily since the early years of the European green bond market.
The bank's green bond asset portfolio grew 21% year-on-year to EUR 9.07 billion from EUR 7.52 billion, driven by increased green loan origination and expanded matching of assets to energy performance certificate data. Nordea attributed the portfolio growth partly to improvements in the underlying data infrastructure that supports its green asset identification process, a technical enhancement that has allowed it to align a larger proportion of its existing loan book with green labelling standards.
RECOGNITION AND EMISSIONS PROGRESS
Nordea was named 'Best ESG Issuer' and 'Best FIG ESG Issuer' by CMD Portal for 2024, reflecting its sustained output in the sustainable bond market. The awards recognise both the volume and the structural quality of the bank's issuances across the year, placing it alongside the most active sustainable debt issuers in the European financial institution segment.
On the climate-impact side, financed emissions from Nordea's business loans, motor vehicle loans, and real estate portfolio fell 36% between 2019 and 2024. The bank's report frames this reduction as evidence that its lending activity is aligning progressively with a lower-carbon trajectory, though it acknowledged that the pace of decarbonisation across its loan book will depend on borrower-level transitions that remain beyond its direct control. Green loan origination continued to be a primary engine of asset portfolio growth in 2024, with demand from corporate and retail borrowers seeking financing for property improvements, renewable energy installations, and fleet electrification supporting the upward trend.
The sustainable bond market in Europe has deepened considerably in the years since Nordea made its first green issuance, and the regulatory environment has grown more demanding in parallel. Investors in ESG-labelled instruments now expect detailed use-of-proceeds reporting, asset-level data, and independent review, all of which have become standard features of Nordea's annual sustainable funding disclosure.
UPDATED FRAMEWORK AND 2025 PIPELINE
Nordea published an updated Green Funding Framework on 19 March 2025, accompanied by a new Second Party Opinion from Sustainalytics. The revised framework sets out the eligibility criteria, use-of-proceeds requirements, and reporting commitments that will govern future green bond issuances, reflecting updates to the EU Taxonomy and evolving market standards for sustainable debt instruments. The Sustainalytics SPO provides the independent market assessment that investors require before committing capital to ESG-labelled paper from any European financial institution.
The bank had already issued EUR 2.5 billion in green bonds through the third quarter of 2025 under the new framework, indicating strong investor appetite for Nordea paper in the ESG-labelled segment. That pipeline positions Nordea to maintain or exceed its 2024 issuance volumes on an annualised basis, assuming market conditions remain supportive. The bank said in the report that it remains committed to growing its sustainable issuance programme in line with its broader climate and sustainability strategy, and that the updated framework provides the governance structure necessary to do so with full transparency to its investor base.