Nokia Rolls Out Sustainable Finance Framework

Nokia has announced its new Sustainable Finance Framework, which puts a strong focus on sustainability as a core part of its future stakeholder value and business outcomes. The framework reinforces the company's commitment to sustainable growth by aligning its financing strategy with its recently enhanced environmental, social, and governance (ESG) strategy.

Nokia's ESG strategy takes into account that profit and purpose go hand in hand and focuses on five areas where the company can make a big difference. By connecting the ESG strategy to the Sustainable Finance Framework, Nokia hopes to make sustainability a part of its operations and give stakeholders long-term value.

Nokia acknowledges its responsibility to reduce the impact of its operations on the environment. This includes decoupling the growth in data traffic from a corresponding increase in energy consumption and reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions throughout its value chain, from its own operations to its supply chain and customers. The company is committed to finding sustainable solutions that will allow it to grow while minimising its environmental impact.

One of Nokia's key ESG objectives is to reduce its GHG emissions by 50% between 2019 and 2030 throughout its value chain. This target has been approved by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) and is aligned to limit global warming to 1.5°C. It is also the designated Sustainability Performance Target in Nokia's Sustainable Finance Framework, allowing the company to issue sustainability-linked financing instruments. By focusing on this single objective, Nokia can systematically track its progress in reducing GHG emissions across all three scopes (Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions).

Sustainalytics, an independent assessor, has given a positive review of Nokia's sustainability performance targets. They have rated Nokia's sustainability performance target as "Highly Ambitious" and the company's key performance indicator of reducing absolute GHG emissions across its value chain as "Very Strong".

Marco Wirén, Chief Financial Officer of Nokia, said: “Complementing our enhanced ESG strategy with the Framework is a logical next step in our progress to strengthen the connection between our ESG and financing strategies. We linked the margin of our EUR 1.5 billion revolving credit facility to our sustainability goals as early as 2019 and signed our first sustainability-linked guarantee facility in 2022. As we accelerate our growth, we remain deeply committed to being part of the solution to the world's biggest challenges.”

Melissa Schoeb, Chief Corporate Affairs Officer of Nokia, said: “Sustainability is core to Nokia’s purpose of creating technology that helps the world act together. We're delighted that Sustainalytics’ opinion aligns with our view regarding the strength of our Framework and that our target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across our value chain was assessed as highly ambitious.”

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Source: Nokia