The European Investment Bank ( EIB ) has extended its Sustainability Awareness Bonds ( SAB ) programme to cover the social objectives of gender equality and women’s economic empowerment, which allows proceeds from these bonds to be allocated to projects around the world fostering access to finance for women, female entrepreneurship and promoting gender equality.

SABs, launched by the EIB in 2018, build on the success of the bank’s Climate Awareness Bonds by tackling a broader range of global challenges, spanning environmental objectives ( beyond climate change mitigation ) and social objectives.

Funds raised with the SABs are allocated to impactful projects contributing substantially to objectives, such as protecting biodiversity, ensuring access to clean water, education and health, and improving infrastructure like social and affordable housing. By combining accountability with measurable impact, the SABs, empower investors to play a vital role in advancing sustainability worldwide, the EIB notes.

With the newly added objectives, proceeds of SABs can also be allocated to EIB investments supporting, for example:

• Female entrepreneurs and women-owned and -led micro, small and medium-sized enterprises ( SMEs ) and mid-caps, with projects in Kenya or France.
• SMEs and mid-caps providing quality employment opportunities for women to promote gender diversity, with projects like in Armenia.
• Projects delivering products or services that close gender equality gaps or meet women’s and girls’ unique needs, like the production of maternal vaccine in Denmark.

With a strong emphasis on transparency, these bonds, the bank points out, provide detailed audited reporting on how funds are used and the results achieved, with reasonable assurance from a supervised auditor.

The EIB gender eligibility criteria are aligned with the 2X Criteria, the EU directive to improve gender balance and the OECD-DAC Gender Equality Policy Marker.

While aligning with the International Capital Market Association’s Sustainability Bond Guidelines, the EIB has structured the eligibility criteria for SABs to align with the logic of the EU’s taxonomy.

“Investing in women entrepreneurs and gender equality is not only the right thing to do, but the smart thing to do,” says Nadia Calviño, the bank’s president. “Gender equality brings growth [and] prosperity to our economies. The extension of our SAB [programme] shows how we can mobilize capital markets and deploy sustainable finance to do this.”