Societe Generale strengthens its sustainable finance commitments in Asia Pacific

Societe Generale has its long-standing commitment to Sustainable and Positive Impact Finance¹. The Bank has established a unique Environmental & Social offer across the entire of its financial value chain to support clients’ sustainable development goals. This includes research and advisory, financing and capital markets, investor solutions and other related services.

With sustainable finance at the heart of Societe Generale’s client offer, Societe Generale announces the appointment of Yasmine Djeddai as Head of Sustainable Finance for Asia Pacific, when the region is undergoing a significant transformation thanks to a greater awareness and growing client appetite for ESG²-related products and services.

Based in Hong Kong, Yasmine reports to Stephen Swift, Head of Global Banking and Advisory for Asia Pacific, and Hacina Py, Head of Sustainable and Positive Impact Finance Solutions.

“This newly created regional role demonstrates Societe Generale’s ambition to place sustainable finance as a core driver of its business strategy. In doing so, we aim to accelerate the origination of mainstream sustainable financing products such as green, social and sustainability-linked financings, as well as delivering responsible and innovative scalable solutions through our Impact-Based Finance and Social Impact solutions offering. Yasmine will collaborate with a network of ESG champions across Asia Pacific to accelerate the Bank’s support for its clients’ business transformation and ESG objectives, and collectively build a more sustainable future,” said Stephen Swift.

Over the past five years, Societe Generale has supported over 35 renewable energy projects in Asia Pacific across all asset classes including onshore and offshore wind, solar, hydro and geothermal. The Bank has been actively supporting many landmark projects and contributing towards energy transition in the region, including the financing of all four offshore windfarms closed to date, as well as the world’s largest floating solar project in Taiwan. The Bank is also the only non-Japanese bank involved in financing the Akita offshore windfarm, the first commercial-scale offshore windfarm in Japan³, together with supporting the Stockyard Hill project, the largest windfarm in Australia.

Since 2019, Societe Generale has helped its clients in Asia Pacific raise over USD 20bn through ESG-related bonds and loans, acting as a Joint Bookrunner on milestone sustainable bond deals including ANZ’s inaugural EUR1,000m Sustainable Development Goals Tier 2 Notes⁴; various offshore benchmark issues from Korean financial institutions including debut Covid-19 relief public bonds and social covered bonds; and CIMB’s inaugural $680m SDG Formosa bond.

Biography - Yasmine Djeddai
Yasmine Djeddai started her career at Societe Generale in Paris in 2005 in risk management for the Structured Commodity Finance group. In 2009, she joined the Structured Commodity Finance team to originate and execute Agri-business and Soft commodities financing in Latin America.

At the end of 2012, Yasmine moved to the Export Finance group to originate and arrange export credit finance transactions in Africa. In 2015, Yasmine was appointed Head of Export Finance UK where she demonstrated strong business development capabilities in growing the Export Finance franchise in London, particularly with the UK export finance agency as well as in executing advisory mandates and arranging ECA Project Finance transactions.

Yasmine holds a Master in Management from Institut des Mines - Telecom Business School, Paris. More recently, she was certified by the European Federation of Financial Analysts Societies (EFFAS) with the CESGA certification (Certified Environmental Social Governance Analyst).

Note to editors:
¹ “Positive Impact Finance” is the one which verifiably produces a positive impact on one of the 3 pillars of sustainable development - the economy, the society or the environment - whilst ensuring any potential negative impacts have been duly identified and mitigated. Principles for Positive Impact have been launched in Paris early 2017 with UNEP.

² ESG: Environmental, Social and Governance

³Click here to know more about the first commercial-scale offshore windfarm in Japan

⁴Click here to know more about ANZ’s inaugural EUR1,000m Sustainable Development Goals Tier 2 Notes

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