Raising awareness on glacier melt through finance

Could you briefly introduce ADB and its mission?

ADB was founded in 1966 as a regional multilateral development bank for Asia and the Pacific. Today, the Bank counts 69 members, of which 50 are from the region. Our mission is to promote inclusive, resilient, and sustainable growth across Asia and the Pacific. We work closely with our members and partners to solve complex challenges together, harnessing innovative financial tools and strategic partnerships to transform lives, build quality infrastructure, and safeguard our planet.

What motivated ADB to issue a green bond specifically focused on raising awareness of glacier melt, and what key climate or adaptation objectives does it support?

The stakes couldn't be higher. Glacier- and snow-fed river basins support water security for around 2 billion people in Asia. Yet these systems are disappearing faster than ever, threatening drinking water, agriculture, and energy generation for millions of people across South Asia and Central and West Asia.

The timing for the green bond to raise awareness of glacier melt is deliberate: it aligns with the UN International Year of Glaciers' Preservation and the Decade of Action for Cryospheric Sciences, amplifying global momentum on glacier protection at a critical moment.

ADB's response is both urgent and holistic. First, through this Green Bond issuance, ADB is mobilising global capital which can support climate-resilient infrastructure, disaster risk reduction, and resilient livelihoods, particularly across Central and West Asia.

Second, we are also leading a portfolio of other programs that advance glacier monitoring, risk-informed planning, and climate-resilient infrastructure. These include Building Resilience in the Hindu Kush Himalaya, Glaciers to Farms, the Resilient River Basins Initiative, and the CAREC Water Pillar. The goal is to help governments embed glacier-related risks into their national climate strategies and strengthen early-warning systems for glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs).

The Glaciers to Farms program alone spans nine countries in Central Asia, South Caucasus and Pakistan, supporting everything from efficient irrigation and water storage to adaptive social protection for communities facing water shortages and extreme heat stress. It’s part of a larger USD 3.5 billion commitment ADB is making over the next decade, in partnership with the Green Climate Fund, to build glacier resilience across the region.

What led ADB to display this green bond on LGX?

ADB's relationship with Luxembourg Stock Exchange (LuxSE) and LGX is one of our most enduring partnerships in international capital markets, spanning more than four decades. LGX has established itself as the world's leading platform for sustainable securities, and its role in shaping the global green bond market has been transformative, bringing rigour, transparency, and visibility to an asset class that now sits at the heart of climate finance.

Europe has been central to ADB’s growth story. European investors represent a significant share of demand for our bonds, and the region has consistently set the pace on climate policy and ESG standards. That alignment matters: investors, who prioritise environmental integrity, need the transparency to verify it.

Since the launch of our green bond program in 2015, ADB has raised USD 15 billion in green bonds across multiple markets and currencies. LGX provides precisely what we need: a globally recognised platform for sustainable bonds, offering high levels of disclosure and visibility to sustainable finance investors.

For a green bond to explicitly spotlight glacier melt, there was no more fitting venue.

How has the market responded to this issuance in terms of investor demand and participation?

The response has been strong, and I think it reflects something deeper than appetite for a well-structured bond.

ADB applies a conservative and rigorous process to project selection under its Green and Blue Bond Framework, and investors have consistently recognised and valued that discipline. It means that when ADB labels a bond “green”, the market trusts what's behind it.

Execution also required agility. Volatile market conditions demanded that our funding team identify the right window and move decisively – which they did. As such, we saw diversified and robust interest, particularly from European investors. And the follow-up interest post-issuance reinforces our view that ADB's debt program will continue to attract the capital needed to drive our mission forward.

Beyond this issuance, could you share some examples of the broader initiatives by ADB to strengthen sustainable finance across Asia?

The way to look at it is: green bonds are just one piece of a much larger architecture. ADB has built a suite of facilities specifically designed to unlock capital at scale:

• Innovative Finance Facility for Climate in Asia and the Pacific (IF-CAP): A first‑of‑its‑kind guarantee mechanism that uses partner guarantees to multiply sustainable finance. With currently around USD 2 billion in guarantees, this can unlock over USD 10 billion in potential investments to support the region's development needs.
• ASEAN Catalytic Green Finance Facility (ACGF): Has mobilised over USD 1.4 billion in co-financing for sustainable infrastructure projects across ASEAN, with access to more than USD 1 billion in loans for governments preparing green projects.
• Nature Solutions Finance Hub: Brings together global partners to target at least USD 2 billion in investments for biodiversity protection, climate resilience, and ecosystem restoration.
• Blue SEA Finance Hub: Builds a pipeline of bankable ocean-health projects in Southeast Asia, forming part of ADB's broader USD 5 billion commitment to healthy oceans.

Taken together, these efforts are aligned with ADB's target to deliver USD 100 billion in cumulative climate finance through 2030 – a goal that demands not just ambition, but the right instruments to channel private capital toward it.

Interview conducted by Marta Jiménez Martínez