Demand for the UK’s first green government bond exceeded £90bn in the first hour of the sale, according to bookrunners, beating all previous records for gilt sales.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak announced in the summer that the government would sell £15bn of green bonds this year. Another sale is scheduled for next month.
Money from the bonds will be directed towards green projects such as wind, hydrogen and solar power, flood defences and carbon capture and storage.
Other countries, including Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Poland and Hungary, have already issued green bonds, but the UK’s green borrowing programme is one of the largest in the world.
The new bond, which is due to mature in July 2033, was on course to price at a yield of about 0.9%, in line with existing gilts of similar maturity, the Financial Times reported.