Environmental & Social Information • Dec 3, 2025
Environmental & Social Information
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An S&P Global Second Party Opinion (SPO) includes S&P Global Ratings' opinion on whether the documentation of a sustainable finance instrument, framework, or program, or a financing transaction aligns with certain third-party published sustainable finance principles. Certain SPOs may also provide our opinion on how the issuer's most material sustainability factors are addressed by the financing. An SPO provides a point-in-time opinion, reflecting the information provided to us at the time the SPO was created and published, and is not surveilled. We assume no obligation to update or supplement the SPO to reflect any facts or circumstances that may come to our attention in the future. An SPO is not a credit rating, and does not consider credit quality or factor into our credit ratings. See Analytical Approach: Second Party Opinions.
Dec. 2, 2025
Location: Norway Sector: Banks
Alignment Summary Aligned = Conceptually aligned = Not aligned =
See Alignment Assessment for more detail.
Frankfurt +49 69 33 999 244 didre.schneider @spglobal.com
Aurskog Sparebank will allocate most of its proceeds to green buildings, seeking to address climate-related risks. Loans for ownership and renovation of green buildings contribute to the transition to a low-carbon society. High energy performance of existing buildings plays a vital role in this transition.
Buildings built after 2021 with BREEAM In-Use Certification are eligible for financing under this framework. Although this certification may result in lower energy consumption, it does not specify minimum energy-savings thresholds. This limits our assessments of the projects' environmental benefits.
Aurskog Sparebank analyzes physical climate risk exposure, but it does not itself address the mitigation of these risks.
Although Norway's building and environmental impact regulations consider these risks, this does not ensure that physical climate considerations will be implemented in financed projects.
Over the three years following issuance of the financing, Aurskog Sparebank (AS) expects to allocate proceeds to new and existing environmental and social projects. It anticipates allocating 95% of its green proceeds to green buildings and the remaining 5% to energy efficiency and sustainable agriculture.
The issuer expects the majority of proceeds to be allocated to refinancing projects.
| Green buildings | Light green | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Acquisition and ownership of buildings built in 2021 or later | ||||
| Acquisition and ownership of buildings built before 2021 | ||||
| Renovation of buildings | ||||
| Installation, maintenance, and repair of energy efficiency equipment | ||||
| Renewable energy | Dark green | |||
| Electricity generation from hydropower | ||||
| Sustainable agriculture | Light green | |||
| Energy efficient or low-emission barns | ||||
| Farm-based wood chip heating facility | ||||
| Seed drills contributing to reduced soil cultivation |
This section provides an analysis of the issuer's sustainability management and the embeddedness of the financing framework within its overall strategy.
AS is a savings bank in Norway that was founded in 1846, with its head office in the municipality of Aurskog-Høland in Akershus county. It has assets of about Norwegian krone (NOK) 23.5 billion or about €2 billion (including funds transferred to Eika Boligkreditt AS) as of Dec. 31, 2024. The bank has eight branches spread across the municipalities of: Bjørkelangen, Årnes, Jessheim, Sørumsand, Askim, Gjøvik, Nannestad, and Lillestrøm. It serves more than 24,000 customers operating in the retail market, agriculture, and small and medium enterprises. The bank's loan portfolio of Norwegian krone (NOK) 23.5 billion (about €2 billion) is mainly focused on retail customers, accounting for almost 75% of total lending, followed by corporate and mortgages. The bank has 80 employees.
Banks are highly exposed to climate transition risk through their financing of economic activities that affect the environment. Their direct environmental impact is small compared with their financed emissions, which stem mainly from power consumption. Generally, policies and rules to reduce emissions could raise credit, legal, and reputational risks for banks. Positively, financing the climate transition offers a growth avenue for banks through lending and other capital market activities. In Europe, climate and environmental regulations are ambitious, and there is a strong push to integrate sustainability considerations into the regulation of banks and financial markets.
Banks finance a wide array of business sectors that are exposed to physical climate risk. However, although climate change is a global issue, weather-related events are typically localized, so the magnitude of banks' exposure is linked to the geographic location of the activities and assets they finance. Similarly, banks' physical footprint (such as branches) may also be exposed to physical risks that might disrupt their ability to service clients in the event of a natural catastrophe. Banks could help mitigate the effects of physical climate risks by financing adaptation projects and climate-resilient infrastructure, as well as by investing in solutions that support business continuity in exposed geographies. Key physical climate risks in Norway relate to an increase in extreme precipitation and flooding.
Banks contribute to significant resource use and biodiversity impacts through the activities they fund or invest in. For example, the real estate sector—which is a major recipient of bank financing—is a large consumer of raw materials for new construction, such as steel and cement. Similarly, bank-financed agricultural activities can have material biodiversity impacts.
Banks' large impact on society stems from their role in enabling access to financial services to individuals and businesses, and in ensuring the correct functioning of payment systems. Ensuring affordable access to financial services, especially for the most vulnerable members of the population, remains a challenge for the banking industry. While structural issues such as poverty, informal employment, and a lack of financial literacy partly limit access to financial services, banks have broad opportunities to support economic development through financial inclusion. However, new technologies will increasingly enable banks to close this gap through cost efficiencies and product innovation.
The project categories in the green and social bond framework will seek to address the sustainability factors that we consider to be most material for AS. Green buildings, renewable energy, and sustainable agriculture can help manage energy consumption. The bank has identified that real estate and agriculture are the highest emitting sectors it finances in its loan portfolio, making the eligible projects important in managing the banks' climate transition risk. The framework's category of affordable housing will aim to broaden the access to home ownership for young people in Norway.
The bank has already started reporting on its financed emissions, covering about 90% of its mortgage portfolio and parts of its commercial real estate and agriculture lending. The most material part of the bank's emissions comes from its lending portfolio, particularly agricultural loans, mortgages and commercial real estate, which far exceed the emissions from its own operations. AS is making progress on climate accounting, but some gaps on its financed emissions remain.
AS adopted its sustainability strategy in 2020 and updated it in November 2024, with a focus on UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) such as sustainable cities and communities and climate action. The bank has also committed to several sustainability objectives, including achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, for its own operations and the bank's credit portfolio, aligning with Norway's national target, which aims to reduce emissions by 70%- 75% by 2035 compared with 1990 levels. This goal is also part of a joint climate ambition with the Eika Alliance, of which the bank is a member. AS has included this ambition in its sustainability strategy since 2022. The bank is also certified by Eco-Lighthouse, a Norwegian environmental management standard recognized by the EU as compliant with the eco-management and audit scheme, for its own operations and products. AS is currently developing its climate transition plan, aligned with the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) principles, under the EU's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). Since 2023, the bank has participated in a joint Eika Group project to prepare for CSRD, including materiality analysis, collaboration with research institutions, and a roadmap for EU taxonomy implementation. In 2024, it carried out its first double materiality assessment, identifying climate change as a key area.
AS maps environmental and social risks in its lending activities, especially for corporate and agricultural customers. All new credit cases involving agricultural customers include environmental, social, and governance (ESG) questions that assess both physical risks (such as flooding, sea level rise, and extreme weather) and transition risks (like regulatory changes and customer expectations). In 2024, the Eika Alliance introduced a climate risk report that integrates property-level risk data directly into the bank's credit assessments. Agricultural customers are also evaluated through ESG questions on pollution, emissions, and climate adaptation, ensuring that climate-related risks are considered before financing is approved.
This section provides an analysis of the framework's alignment to Green, Social, and Sustainable Bond principles.
We assess all the framework's green project categories as having a green shade and consider the social project category to be aligned with the principles. AS can issue green, social, and sustainability bonds under this framework. Please refer to the "Analysis Of Eligible Projects" section for more information on our analysis of the environmental benefits of the expected use of proceeds. AS will allocate an amount equal to the net proceeds from instruments issued under this framework to finance or refinance loans for activities that are in line with the eligibility criteria outlined in the framework, namely green buildings, renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, and affordable housing.
The framework outlines the process to select and approve eligible projects. AS' Committee for Balance Management (CBM) together with the sustainability manager are responsible for evaluating and selecting eligible loans, monitoring and maintaining the green, social, and sustainability loan portfolio for ongoing compliance, managing updates to the framework, and removing loans that no longer meet the criteria. The framework has a clear exclusion list outlining that green, social, and sustainability bonds will not be used to finance projects directed to companies linked to fossil energy extraction or generation, potentially environmentally negative resource extraction, development and production of controversial weapons and defense systems, gambling, tobacco, or pornography, or to companies violating international human rights.
The allocation of net proceeds will be tracked to ensure that they will exclusively finance eligible projects. Management will allocate the proceeds on a pro rata basis to eligible green, social, or sustainability loans within the loan portfolio, maintaining a register to ensure transparency and accuracy. The portfolio must always exceed the outstanding nominal amount of green, social, or sustainability bonds and is periodically reviewed and adjusted by the CBM, together with the sustainability manager to maintain alignment with eligibility criteria. Repaid or ineligible loans will be replaced promptly, and any unallocated proceeds will be held or invested in a manner consistent with the bank's liquidity management policy and sustainability goals.
The bank commits to disclosing the allocation and impact of proceeds annually in a Green and Social Bond Report, which will include the allocation and impact reports. The allocation report will include the total size of the green loan portfolio, per category and relevant subcategories, the social loan portfolio, as well as the sustainability loan portfolio, the outstanding nominal amount of green, social, and sustainability bonds, the share of green loan portfolios financed by green bonds, the share of the social loan portfolio financed by social bonds and the sustainability loan portfolio financed by sustainability bonds, and the amount of unallocated proceeds. It will also report on the aggregate environmental impacts of green, social, and sustainability loans financed under this framework, and for green loans, AS will be base reporting on best-effort calculations aligned with the International Capital Market Association's (ICMA) "Handbook – Harmonized Framework for Impact Reporting".
This section provides details of our analysis of eligible projects, based on their environmental benefits and risks, using the "Analytical Approach: Shades Of Green Assessments".
Loans to finance or refinance residential, commercial, and public buildings in Norway that meet the following criteria:
Buildings built in 2021 or later: primary energy demand (PED) of the building is at least 10% lower than the threshold set for nearly zero-energy building (NZEB) requirements in Norway, or for commercial and public buildings, Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) class A, a BREEAM-NOR/BREEAM In-use certificate notation as "Excellent" or better; or
Loans to finance or refinance individual measures (or loans to corporates whose business offering is to provide these measures). These measures include addition of insulation to existing building envelope components, such as external walls (including walls, roofs, lofts, ground floors, and basements, and related products for the application of the insulation to the building; replacement of windows with energy-efficient windows; replacement of doors with energy-efficient doors; installation and replacement of energy-efficient light sources; installation, replacement, maintenance, and repair of heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) and water heating systems, including equipment related to district heating services, with highly efficient technologies; and installation of low water and low energy kitchen and sanitary water fittings.
If the energy label certification is updated or a national definition for the top 15% most energy efficient buildings becomes available during the period of this framework, AS will refer to the new definitions.
Loans to buildings with direct fossil-fuel heating or buildings in the oil and gas value chain are not in scope of this framework.
Dark green
Loans to finance or refinance the electricity generation from hydropower:
Life cycle greenhouse gas emissions from the generation of electricity from hydropower are lower than 100 grams of CO2 equivalent per kilowatt hour (gCO2e/kWh).
• Given the ongoing and future impacts of a changing climate, which in the bank's region include flooding, landslides, and extreme weather events, the resilience of hydropower assets is crucial. Such aspects are covered in the licensing process and regulation of such assets in Norway.

Loans to finance or refinance agricultural activities or projects that meet the following criteria:
| Dark green |
Medium green |
Light green |
Yellow | Orange | Red |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Description | ' |
' |
' |
1 | ' |
| Activities that correspond to the long-term vision of an LCCR future. | Activities that represent significant steps toward an LCCR future but will require further improvements to be long-term LCCR solutions. | Activities representing transition steps in the near-term that avoid emissions lock-in but do not represent long-term LCCR solutions. | Activities that do not have a material impact on the transition to an LCCR future, or, Activities that have some potential inconsistency with the transition to an LCCR future, albeit tempered by existing transition measures. | Activities that are not currently consistent with the transition to an LCCR future. These include activities with moderate potential for emissions lock-in and risk of stranded assets. | Activities that are inconsistent with, and likely to impede, the transition required to achieve the long-term LCCR future. These activities have the highest emissions intensity, with the most potential for emissions lock-in and risk of stranded assets. |
| Example projects | 1 | ||||
| Solar power plants | Energy efficient buildings | Hybrid road vehicles | Health care services | Conventional steel production | New oil exploration |
Note: For us to consider use of proceeds aligned with ICMA Principles for a green project, we require project categories directly funded by the financing to be assigned one of the three green Shades.
LCCR--Low-carbon climate resilient. An LCCR future is a future aligned with the Paris Agreement; where the global average temperature increase is held below 2 degrees Celsius (2 C), with efforts to limit it to 1.5 C, above pre-industrial levels, while building resilience to the adverse impact of climate change and achieving sustainable outcomes across both climate and non-climate environmental objectives. Long term and near term--For the purpose of this analysis, we consider the long term to be beyond the middle of the 21st century and the near term to be within the next decade. Emissions lock-in--Where an activity delays or prevents the transition to low-carbon alternatives by perpetuating assets or processes (often fossil fuel use and its corresponding greenhouse gas emissions) that are not aligned with, or cannot adapt to, an LCCR future. Stranded assets--Assets that have suffered from unanticipated or premature write-downs, devaluations, or conversion to liabilities (as defined by the University of Oxford).
Improve access to affordable home mortgage loans for young retail customers with little equity.
Frankfurt +49 69 33 999 244 didre.schneider @spglobal.com
London +44 20 7176 6750 Sofia.singh.digpaul @spglobal.com
Stockholm +7 49 5783 4071 Irina,velieva @spglobal.com
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