(Bloomberg) -- Japan's most-popular tourist city is exploring a possible sale of debt to finance environmental, social and governance projects, in what may be the country's only such municipal bond after Tokyo, the mayor of Kyoto said.
The historic old capital of Japan, which has more than 1,600 temples, is considering a yen issuance to help meet funding toward the United Nations' sustainable development goals (SDGs), Daisaku Kadokawa, 68, said in an interview after meeting with potential investors and financial institutions on Monday in Tokyo. Dressed in his trademark locally made kimono, Kadokawa said he's talking to banks about projects that could meet growing demand for such bonds.
“It's important to consider ways of exploring SDG projects from an investment standpoint, and do research in this area,” said Kadokawa, whose kimono had the UN's multi-colored SDG logo embroidered onto the back. “We would also like to see how much of a cost we would have to bear in order to issue such bonds.”
The proceeds from any issuance of this type could be used to invest in clean energy facilities, building childcare centers and maintaining parks, he said.
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While sales of SDG bonds are surging, Tokyo Metropolitan Government is Japan's only municipality to have sold green debt so far, issuing a total of about $450 million dollars equivalent in three currencies from 2017 through this year. The cost of being certified is creating a bottleneck for other potential borrowers, according to analysts.
Kyoto is considering issuing such bonds to both institutional and retail investors, said Yuki Shibano of the city's financial bureau.
“For retail investors, we want to come up with a product which would be simple and easy to understand such as welfare, childcare and disaster prevention purposes,” Shibano said by telephone, adding that the purpose would be to help boost the business of Kyoto banks and raise awareness about the SDGs to Kyoto citizens.
--With assistance from Issei Hazama and Erica Yokoyama (News).
To contact the reporters on this story: Ayai Tomisawa in Tokyo at atomisawa@bloomberg.net;Rie Morita in Tokyo at rmorita5@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Andrew Monahan at amonahan@bloomberg.net, Beth Thomas, Finbarr Flynn
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