ING took home the honour of Lender of the Year in Europe at the IJInvestor Awards, with judging commending it on its sustainable financing initiative and work on important deals.  

A member of the independent judging panel said: “Investing €115 billion in sustainable financing across 792 sustainability deals makes ING by far the most active and largest capacity lender in the sustainability space of the entrants reviewed. It displayed clear success and impact in that space.” 

ING in December 2023 the lender made the decision to phase out financing of oil and gas by 2040 and triple financing by 2025.   

It then established its New Energy Technology Initiative (NETI) to harness innovation and disruption in the energy sector, by assessing the most impactful emerging technologies in the energy value chain and building up our knowledge and advisory expertise on these technologies.  

ING’s strategic priority has been to put sustainability at the heart of what it does.  

The submission said that the Amsterdam-based lender has invested €115 billion ($123.6bn) in sustainable financing, supporting 792 sustainability deals in 2023.  

It provides a range of sustainable financing products, however, the submission highlighted 2 – sustainability-linked loans and green loans.  

The submission highlighted ING’s role Recurrent Energy’s multi-currency RCF worth up to €1.3 billion. ING acted as the sole issuing bank and sole sustainability coordinator on the facility, overseeing compliance with ESG criteria for green financing. 

The submission said: “The transaction has been structured as a €674 million warehouse 3 year-RCF Green Facility (with extension options) for the construction of RE’s initial solar pipeline across Spain & UK; solar capacity will be close to 1 GW. It will also empower Recurrent Energy to continue to develop and construct solar and battery energy storage projects across Spain, Italy, the UK, the Netherlands, France and Germany.” 

To conclude, one judge said: “Only entry to really show an initiative and delivering on this initiative.”