NTT plans to issue green bonds worth about 300 billion yen ($2.7 billion) to fund the company’s sustainability efforts.
NTT Finance said the bonds will include three tranches with maturities of three, five, and 10 years and funds will go to environmentally-friendly projects in areas such as renewable energy and energy-efficient broadband infrastructure.
"We aim to achieve both the contradictory goals of zero environmental harm and economic growth, through business activities and innovations that break boundaries," said NTT CEO Jun Sawada at a news conference.
Building and operating renewable facilities will cost an additional 10 billion yen ($90 million) by 2030, Sawada said.
At the end of September, NTT announced a pledge to become carbon neutral by 2040. The company said that goal includes Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions.
The entire NTT group aims to be carbon neutral by 2040, but aims to reduce the greenhouse gas emission of NTT DOCOMO and the data center units by 80 percent (compared to 2013 levels) by 2030.
The company said it planned to reach this goal through increasing its use of renewable energy. The company also hopes to reduce greenhouse gases through the implementation of its next-generation, high-speed broadband infrastructure, Innovative Optical and Wireless Network (IOWN).
In January the Japanese government announced plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050.
A number of data centers and telcos have recently turned to sustainability-linked financing to help drive carbon goals. Aligned has $1.35 billion in securitized notes issued under a new sustainability framework and secured $1.725 billion in sustainability-linked loans.
Last month AirTrunk converted $1.545bn in financing into sustainability-linked loans, while Dutch telco KPN and Latin American data center firm Nabiax have also tied financing to ESG goals in recent months. Baidu has also announced an offering of $1 billion in bonds it plans to use towards its environment, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives.
