ABN AMRO ESG Investor Survey – 2H 2025

The ESG survey is a collaboration across Financial Markets Research and Sustainable Markets (DCM): Dick Ligthart (Director DCM), Flora Mile (Senior Associate DCM), Larissa de Barros Fritz (Senior Fixed Income Strategist, and Filipa Tomás (Associate).

Key take-aways

1. ESG Investor Profile and Behaviour

• Most ESG-dedicated investors manage either Article 8 or Article 9 funds.

• Article 9 funds usually either invest on ESG bonds and/or conduct a screening of the issuer’s ESG strategy prior to investment.

• Green bonds remain the dominant label that investors are allowed to invest in, followed by social and sustainable bonds.

• Investors prefer use-of-proceeds bonds, such as green and transition bonds, over SLBs for "companies in transition”.

• Most investors assess biodiversity when investing in green bonds, although the assessment is often limited.

• Investors prioritize financial returns over ESG impact in their strategies

2. Investment Screening

• The majority of investors see the ICMA (Green Bond) Principles as the most relevant standard used when assessing ESG bonds, followed by the EU Green Bond Standard, which has become increasingly important over the years.

• ESG strategy and ESG risk ratings are the most relevant criteria for investors when analyzing ESG instruments.1/3 of the investors does not have a specific preference for SPO provider. Of those that do have one, Sustainalytics and ISS ESG remain the preferred choice.

• Investors have multiple uses for ESG ratings, and the majority uses MSCI and Sustainalytics ESG ratings to complement their own analysis.

3. “Use of Proceed” ESG Bonds

• There is a strong preference of investors towards bond-by-bond reporting and annual reporting until bond maturity.

• Data quality remains the main issue preventing the growth of the green bond market.

4. Sustainability-Linked Bonds (SLB)

• Most investors favor SLBs with a coupon step-up but are increasingly open to other financial structures. Flexibility on the 25bps coupon step-up has grown, likely driven by the recent decline in rates.

• Assessing the comparability and ambition level of targets remains the main challenge for the SLB market.

• Fewer investors view SLBs as suitable for companies in transition.

5. Greenium

• The willingness to accept a greenium has significantly dropped over the years, but increases if the issuer is new to the green bond market or has a proven track record in reducing carbon emissions.

• Investors justify the greenium due to the positive climate impact of green bonds and as a hedge against volatility.

6. Regulation

• The majority of ESG investors do not give preferential treatment to EU GBS and still require ICMA alignment.

• With reduced ESG disclosures under the EU Omnibus proposal, over half of respondents will rely more on third-party ESG data providers, while 43% will directly request missing data from companies.

• Most investors did not rename their funds due to ESMA guidelines.