How the sustainability-linked loan market is evolving

Having shot to prominence in the early part of this decade, have sustainability-linked loans (or SLLs) become an enduring part of the private credit landscape? Or have they quietly gone out of fashion?

In this special edition of the podcast, co-hosted with PEI Group affiliate publication New Private Markets, we seek to chart the rise of sustainability-linked loans and assess how they are being used today.

To recap: these loans feature a margin ratchet whereby the borrower’s performance against certain sustainability targets can result in a lower interest rate in the case of outperformance, or an increase in the case of underperformance.

To help us assess the situation, we enlisted Nishan Srinivasan, head of origination and partner at Ambienta Credit. Since its inception in 2007, Ambienta has invested in companies operating in the realms of environmental and resource efficiency. Srinivasan spent 22 years at Credit Suisse, latterly as global co-head of leverage finance origination. He joined Ambienta in 2023 to help launch its credit platform.

In the early days of SLLs it was not uncommon to see ratchets of 5 basis points relating to sustainability goals that were easily achievable, says Srinivasan. “Typically this was, dare I say, window dressing,” he said. “Quite de minimis in the context of the cost of the loan”.

Fast forward to today and the targets are more ambitious, the discounts more meaningful – as much as 40bps – and there is more frequently a margin uplift in the event of failure.