BBVA has set up a sustainable supply chain finance line for Spanish infrastructure and renewable energy conglomerate Acciona.

The €15mn facility will be used to streamline payments to 25 European suppliers involved in the firm’s Ness Energy waste-to-power plant in Scotland. The plant is being built as a long-term sustainable solution for non-recyclable municipal waste of Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire and Moray, and to ensure compliance with the nationwide ban on biodegradable landfill waste that will begin in 2021.

Unlike the most well-known sustainable supply chain finance programme, that created by HSBC and Walmart which gives suppliers who meet sustainability goals cheaper financing, a BBVA spokesperson explains that the Spanish bank’s line has been certified as sustainable because of the contribution of the end project – the waste-to-power plant – to three sustainable development goals: SDG 3, health and well-being; SDG 11, sustainable cities and communities and SDG 12, responsible production and consumption.

BBVA and Acciona have also defined two KPIs in the certification, these being the amount of waste processed and the power recovered from that waste.

This is not the first time BBVA and Acciona have got together to link financing to sustainability. In April last year, BBVA, along with Santander, acted as sustainability agent in Acciona’s first sustainable syndicated loan of €675mn, which saw the interest rate adjusted based on the company’s performance in sustainability parameters.