Strawberry refinances with commitment to emissions cuts

With an ambitious goal of being emission-neutral in its own operations by 2030, Strawberry has now entered into a sustainability-linked loan agreement with DNB where the interest rate is controlled by the hotel company's climate accounts.

Strawberry Hospitality Group has recently refinanced a loan of NOK 2.8 billion with DNB and tied the margin determination to the company's sustainability work.

– We set what we ourselves thought was a rather ambitious goal of being emission-neutral in its own operations by 2030. Thanks to the wholehearted support of our colleagues with fantastic efforts, we are now taking it a step further and committing to a sustainability-linked loan that gives us further incentive to continue the emission cuts in our own organization, says Torgeir Silseth, CEO of Strawberry.

Carrot and stick
So far, the hotel company has managed to reduce emissions by around 35 percent compared to the base year 2022. If it manages to maintain the pace, Strawberry will receive better loan terms than with traditional financing.

– At the same time, this is also about us committing ourselves financially to achieving the emission reductions we have set ourselves. So far, there has been no risk in setting the targets in itself. Now it will be both a carrot and a stick, says Silseth.

Mutual dependence
Both Strawberry and DNB have high ambitions to be a driving force in the Nordic business community for a sustainable transition. While Strawberry wants to give guests the opportunity to choose more sustainably, DNB has an active goal of advising companies to cut emissions. An initiative that Divisional Director at DNB, Trine Loe, is proud to promote.

– We are proud to be able to advise our customers on combining sustainability and financing. The solution we offer places increased demands on data collection and transparency around the companies' sustainability strategy. For DNB, it is important that our customers work well with their sustainability goals, including emissions. For us as a bank, customers' emissions are the largest part of our reported emissions. If we are to achieve our goal of being Net Zero in 2050, we depend on having ambitious customers like Strawberry who work well with this, says Trine Loe.