BNP Paribas was Latin America’s leading bookrunner in sustainable debt markets, ranking first in the all-ESG, green, social and sustainability bond league tables in 2025, a year when regional issuance contracted sharply.
Having climbed nine places to lead the all-ESG bond table, the bank took a 13.4% share of total ESG bond volumes and close to a quarter of the region’s social bond market. Its edge rests less on any single number than on the way scale, product breadth and structuring depth reinforce one another.
That breadth shows in the run of first-of-their-kind transactions executed across the region. BNP Paribas arranged the inaugural €1.5 billion sustainability bond for CAF, the Latin American development bank, and supported Caixa Economica on its first dollar issue since 2014 – a $700 million social bond billed as the first public social inclusion bond in Latin America. It was joint bookrunner on Bogota’s inaugural green bond, the largest green transaction by a municipality in the region and coordinated a $1.25 billion green loan for Ternium to build a low-carbon steel mill.
Nowhere is the first-mover instinct clearer than in ocean and nature finance
Currency diversification has widened the options open to issuers. BNP Paribas took a record share of Latin American issuance in Swiss francs over the year, opening the market to regional names through deals such as Banco de Chile’s inaugural international social bond, Metro de Santiago’s green bond and BancoEstado’s blue bond, the first in the Swiss franc market.
Into blue
Nowhere is the first-mover instinct clearer than in ocean and nature finance. BNP Paribas structured CAF’s €100 million blue bond – a first-of-its-kind issue financing ecosystem protection and adaptation across Brazil and Ecuador, with the UNDP as technical adviser – and arranged CABEI’s first blue bond under its 2024 sustainable bond framework, with proceeds to support the recovery of Lake Yojoa in Honduras.
The regional push sits within a group commitment that has reached €1 billion for the maritime ecological transition, underpinned by the bank’s role as an official partner of the 2025 United Nations Ocean Conference. Sustainability-linked structures tied to nature extend the theme, among them a $1.2 billion loan for Suzano linked to forest restoration across the Cerrado, Atlantic Forest and Amazon.
The model behind the deals is built for the region. Sustainability is embedded from origination through structuring, execution and post-deal monitoring, run by dedicated low-carbon transition, capital markets and advisory teams in the Americas whose senior figures help shape the market’s rules through the ICMA and LMA. That positioning matters in a region the Inter-American Development Bank estimates needs $2.2 trillion of infrastructure investment by 2030 to make progress towards the sustainable development goals.
BNP Paribas reinforced the message through the year’s set-piece gatherings, from COP30 in Brazil and PRI in Person in Sao Paulo to the IDB annual meetings in Santiago. It is that mix – regional league-table scale, disciplined execution and a first-mover position in frontiers such as blue and biodiversity finance – that keeps BNP Paribas ahead in Latin America.
