Standard Chartered has published its 2025 Sustainability Bond Framework, setting out the terms under which the bank will issue green, social, and sustainability-linked instruments going forward. The framework is aligned with the International Capital Market Association's Green Bond Principles 2025 and Social Bond Principles 2025, the bank confirmed in a document published on its website in March 2025.
The centrepiece of the updated framework is a USD 300 billion sustainable finance mobilisation target by 2030. Between January 2021 and September 2024, the bank mobilised USD 121 billion towards that goal, representing 32% year-on-year growth in 2024 alone. The figures position Standard Chartered as one of the more active issuers among globally systemic banks operating across emerging and frontier markets.
CARBON AVOIDANCE AND NEW INNOVATION HUBS
The bank's existing portfolio of sustainable assets had, by the reporting date, avoided 4.06 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent from projects already in operation. That figure covers the environmental performance of assets financed under earlier framework editions and provides a tangible impact metric for investors assessing the portfolio's climate credentials. The 2025 edition extends the same measurement methodology to new issuances.
In 2025, Standard Chartered launched a Circular Economy Innovation Hub, adding to four existing sustainability innovation hubs. The hubs are designed to develop and test financing structures suited to sectors undergoing the green transition, particularly in the Asia-Pacific and African markets where the bank has deep franchise presence. The bank also issued its inaugural USD 500 million Sustainability-Linked Loan Financing Bond — a novel structure that bundles sustainability-linked loans into a bond format, giving capital markets investors direct exposure to the bank's corporate lending with explicit sustainability conditions attached.
The framework also sets out the bank's commitment to 2030 interim financed emissions targets across 12 of its highest-emitting client sectors. These sector-level targets sit alongside the broader net-zero financed emissions ambition for 2050 and are intended to guide capital allocation decisions in the years ahead, providing a concrete accountability mechanism for the stated climate commitments.
MOBILISATION PACE AND MARKET ALIGNMENT
The gap between the USD 121 billion mobilised to September 2024 and the USD 300 billion target by 2030 implies a sustained acceleration in deal flow over the remainder of the decade. Standard Chartered's franchise — concentrated in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East — gives it access to green infrastructure and energy transition financing opportunities that differ from those available to predominantly European or North American issuers. The bank said in the framework document that its focus would remain on high-impact markets where the capital mobilisation gap is largest.
Alignment with the ICMA's 2025 editions of the Green Bond Principles and Social Bond Principles ensures that instruments issued under the framework will meet the latest transparency and disclosure standards expected by European and international investors. The updated principles, published earlier in 2025, introduced additional guidance on transition finance and impact reporting, both of which are relevant to Standard Chartered's emerging-market lending book. The bank said it would publish annual allocation and impact reports for instruments issued under the framework, maintaining the disclosure cadence that investors in sustainable bonds have come to expect as a condition of participation. With the inaugural SLLB already in the market and five sustainability innovation hubs in operation, the 2025 framework document provides the governance architecture for Standard Chartered's ambition to be the leading international bank in sustainable finance across the markets it serves.