ICMA publishes new materials at Annual General Meeting of Green, Social, Sustainability and Sustainability-Linked Bond Principles

On 26 June 2025, the International Capital Market Association (ICMA) released new materials and guidance to support the Green, Social, Sustainability and Sustainability-Linked Bond Principles (the Principles).

New materials and guidance include:

• Sustainable Bonds for Nature: A Practitioner’s Guide: This publication, intended to be used in conjunction with ICMA’s existing Principles, is aimed at encouraging issuance of green or sustainable use of proceeds bonds to finance projects supporting nature by providing guidance for market participants as to what types of projects could be financed with a nature-themed green bond. This thematic guidance also provides issuers with the option for green bonds aligned to the Green Bond Principles and with proceeds exclusively applied to finance nature-related projects to use the secondary designation of a “Nature Bond”. The guidance also notes the potential for sustainability-linked bonds (SLBs) to include nature-related key performance indicators (KPIs) . 

Additional guidance and updates have also been released, including:

• A 2025 update of the Green Bond Principles which clarifies how the Green Enabling Projects Guidance is linked to the Green Bond Principles and extends the definition of Green Projects to also include “activities” (a mirroring change has been made to the definition of Social Projects in the 2025 update of the Social Bond Principles for consistency). 
• To further support the Green Enabling Projects Guidance, a new Annex with dedicated FAQs has also been added and an example checklist published, which includes illustrative examples to help market participants demonstrate how projects align with the Green Enabling Projects Guidance. A new Annex with dedicated FAQs has also been added to the Sustainability-Linked Loans financing Bonds Guidelines to support this nascent product.
• A 2025 edition of the Guidance Handbook includes a new FAQ (2.1.15) relating to defence projects (noting the likely ineligibility of such projects for green, social and sustainable bonds aligned with the ICMA Principles) and updates to FAQs pertaining to SLBs to cater for sovereign issuer’s specific needs (ICMA has also updated the SLB Illustrative KPIs Registry to contemplate KPIs for sovereign issuers).

ICMA are expected to release further publications to support the market in the coming months, including market guidance relating to financing transition projects, aiming for such guidance to be finalised in time for the 11^th Annual Conference of the  Principles to be held in Tokyo, Japan on 6 November 2025.