The company increased the volume of this deal from an he initial €750 million to €1 billion, Telefónica announced this morning.
And it has submitted an offer to purchase two further hybrid bonds, due to be executed and closed next week.
Telefónica said: “The funds obtained will be allocated to investments in green projects that seek to achieve greater energy efficiency, consisting mainly of the shutdown of obsolete equipment and the deployment and improvement of network infrastructure.”
It said: “Today’s issue is a continuation of Telefónica’s objective that 25% of its financing until 2024 should meet sustainability criteria.”
The company has not yet identified the projects on which the €1 billion – and proceeds from the further bonds – will be spent.
It said: “Once projects have been identified and awarded, which will necessarily refer to new investments made up to two years before or after issuance, Telefónica will report their impact on energy consumption per petabyte unit of data traffic, on the energy savings they represent, and on the CO2 emissions avoided.”
It cites “fibre and 5G deployments” in plans for “the transformation of telecommunications networks”, and says “renewable energy generation plans” are “the main levers to improve efficiency and reduce the carbon footprint”.
Telefónica says the new bond “also aligns with the company’s goal to help its customers avoid more than 50 million tonnes of CO2 emissions between 2020 and 2025 thanks to digital solutions, and to achieve zero waste by 2030”.
Its sustainable financing “is close to €17 billion” says Telefónica. Its first “green bond” was in 2019.
