KPN announces € 1.0 billion Sustainability-Linked Revolving Credit Facility

KPN has today concluded a €1 billion credit facility with an interest rate linked to KPN’s sustainability performance in the years ahead. This financing agreement gives a further boost to KPN’s sustainability ambitions. Earlier this year, KPN announced that it was ratcheting up its sustainability ambitions to “net zero” emissions throughout the chain in 2040.

The credit facility interest rate is linked to KPN’s performance in relation to three strategic sustainability targets: speeding up the digitization of the Netherlands by rolling out fiber optics, reducing KPN’s energy consumption, and decreasing CO2 emissions throughout the chain (Scope 3 emissions).

“This is an important financing agreement for KPN that provides financial flexibility and ensures that we retain our solid liquidity position,” says KPN CFO Chris Figee. “Linking our sustainability performance to our financing structure underscores our commitment and is in keeping with the status of KPN as one of the world’s most sustainable telecom companies.” The new facility has a maturity of five years with two one-year extension options. The credit facility replaces the current facility, which dates from 2016, and will be used mainly as a liquidity reserve.

Digitization the driving force behind energy saving
Sustainability is an integral part of KPN’s strategy. For instance, the company has been using exclusively green power since 2011, has been climate neutral since 2015 and aims to be virtually circular by 2025. This means that KPN will focus even more on reducing the emissions of suppliers and customers when using their products and services. KPN CFO Chris Figee: “Thanks to digitization across the network of the Netherlands, we as a society are succeeding in achieving significant energy savings. Thanks to digital processes, in 2020 KPN saved its customers a total of three times the energy needed to run the KPN network. KPN takes its responsibility as a sustainable and ‘virtuous’ company seriously. With our technology and services we explore the potential to help other companies and sectors – including agriculture, mobility and healthcare – make their activities more sustainable. We want to use our digital services to contribute towards reducing emissions and creating a better living environment.”

The telecom sector is known as one of the biggest energy consumers. Nevertheless, KPN manages year in, year out to make the network of the Netherlands even more sustainable. In the last ten years, our energy consumption decreased by 37%, while over the same period the volume of data traffic increased almost 21-fold.