Nedbank committed to increase its sustainable development finance exposures to 20% of group total gross loans and advances by the end of 2025. It closed the year at 21%, with sustainable development finance exposures of ZAR207 billion ($12.3 billion), up from ZAR123 billion, or 14% of gross loans and advances, in 2022.
The composition matters as much as the total. Renewable energy exposures reached ZAR46 billion, up 15% year-on-year, with a further ZAR46 billion lent to industry, innovation and infrastructure. Green-certified buildings and affordable home loans accounted for ZAR34 billion, agriculture ZAR30 billion and small businesses ZAR27 billion. Financing for clean water and sanitation, at ZAR5 billion, has more than doubled in two years – a pointed allocation in a region where water security is as pressing as decarbonisation.
Nedbank has been willing to extend sustainable finance into products that rarely carry the label
Issuance tells a similar story. The standout was an inaugural ZAR2.5 billion tier 2 social capital note placed with the African Development Bank and listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange’s sustainability segment in November. It was Nedbank’s first social bond and the first instrument issued under its refreshed sustainable finance fundraising framework, verified by S&P Global in October 2025. Proceeds are earmarked for around 4,000 affordable housing units financed through retail home loans, with an emphasis on women borrowers and a portion reserved for green-certified stock.
Capacity, not just volume
Nedbank has been willing to extend sustainable finance into products that rarely carry the label. In 2025 it closed its first green trade finance facility – $48 million of letters of credit and ZAR720 million of letters of guarantee – to fund WBHO’s procurement of panels, trackers and modules for the 501-megawatt Khauta North and South solar projects, structured in line with the Loan Market Association’s green loan principles.
In cement, one of the hardest sectors to abate, the bank was sole funder of the $66 million offshore trade facility behind PPC’s ZAR3 billion plant in the Western Cape, joint local funder of the construction and lead hedge provider on the offshore requirement. In real estate, it acted as co-lender and sole sustainability structurer on a ZAR475.7 million green loan for Kasada’s Mama Shelter Cape Town, an adaptive reuse of a landmark site targeting EDGE Advanced certification. A $28 million commitment to Airnergize Capital Fund I took the clean technology platform to $161 million against a $200 million target.
Advisory capability underpins much of this. A $200 million green building facility from the IFC, announced in May 2025, carries a performance-based incentive that Nedbank passes to developers to defray the cost of certification – a practical answer to the question of who pays for green. The bank’s in-house EDGE expert team, unusual among lenders, guided Attacq’s Mall of Africa to EDGE Advanced certification: the first shopping centre in South Africa to achieve it and, at 484,800 square metres, the largest asset globally to do so.
Policy gives the strategy teeth: no project finance for new thermal coal mines, thermal coal funding below 0.5% of gross loans by 2030, no new finance for oil production from 2035 and zero fossil fuel exposure by 2045.
