Second Party Opinions

Our assessments provide both issuers and investors with credible ESG information and ensure a transparent assessment of the quality of green and sustainable bonds and loans. Our expert team is based in France, Germany and Spain, and we interact with our clients and deliver our reports in English, French, German, and Spanish.

High-Quality Assessments of Sustainable Debt Instruments

We provide issuers and borrowers of sustainable debt instruments with independent opinions on their ESG commitments for Green, Social, Sustainable Bonds and Loans or Sustainability-Linked Bonds and Loans. Our Second Party Opinions (SPOs) allow issuers and borrowers to strengthen the transparency and robustness of their ESG debt frameworks, by providing investors and lenders with an independent expert assessment.

We assess both Use of Proceed and Sustainability-linked debt format by evaluating how the ESG financing frameworks align with ICMA (International Capital Market Association) and LMA (Loan Market Association) sustainability principles. In addition to SPOs, we carry out post-issuance KPI performance certification and verifications of allocation and impact.

All types of debt issuers entrust us with the assessment of their debt instruments and frameworks:

Small, mid-sized and large corporates,
Sovereigns, supranationals, government agencies and state-owned corporates
Financial institutions.

The combined expertise from imug rating, acquired in 2023, and EthiFinance has allowed us to build a team of experts in corporate sustainability and sustainable finance with a proven track-record of assessing sustainable debt instruments, their alignment with different sustainability principles and standards and their concrete environmental and social impact.

Our Sustainable Finance teams are based in our European offices (France, Germany and Spain) and communicate, manage projects and deliver reports in English, French, German, and Spanish. Translation of reports into other languages is also proposed.

Client benefits

Broad client base

Since the launch of our SPO services in 2018, we have delivered close to 100* SPOs across the European market for a broad scope of clients (both private and public).

European analyst team

Our ESG analyst team of more than 25 experts* experts is based in our offices throughout Europe (France, Germany and Spain), delivering SPOs in English, French, German and Spanish.

Variety of debt instruments

Our clients trust us for our wide-ranging experience in completing SPO assignments for sustainability debt instruments (Bonds, Loans, Commercial Paper, Securitization) both under Use of Proceeds and Sustainability-linked formats.

Flexible and adaptable offer

Our clients appreciate our availability, flexibility and our proximity to their markets.

*As of May 2024

Our Published SPOs

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Contact Our Experts

Lotta Marchal

Head of Corporate Sales
Europe

+33 6 70 99 90 92 lotta.marchal@ethifinance.com

Maria Cristina Romero Medina

Head of Sustainable Finance
Spain & Portugal

+34 6 99 78 48 95 maria.romero@ethifinance.com

Methodology

Our Second Party Opinion methodologies cover both Use of Proceeds format instruments and Sustainability-linked format instruments.

The evaluation is twofold or threefold depending on the type of structuration:

For Sustainability-Linked Financing Loans or Bonds: In addition to the compliance of the issuance framework with the standards (LMA or ICMA), and alignment with market best practices, we assess the issuer’s level of ESG maturity.

For Green / Social / Sustainable Loans or Bonds: In addition to the compliance of the issuance framework with standards (LMA or ICMA) and market practices, plus the ESG maturity of the issuer, we assess the level of impact of the targeted uses of proceeds. More specifically for Green Use of Proceeds, we analyse the substantial contribution of eligible projects to the EU Taxonomy.