Reducing the carbon footprint of our economy is a growing concern for investors, and we urgently need to direct our financing toward the most sustainable industries. 
As the leading green bond issuer in the transport and logistics sector, SNCF Group is a major player in the sustainable finance market, backed by high-quality green assets and a strong spirit of innovation.

With eligible assets on the order of €2.5 billion annually, we’re launching a "100% green finance” strategy. By 2025, we plan to convert all financing products and investments—for SNCF Group and our subsidiaries—to responsible investing criteria.

In 2016, SNCF Group launched a green bond programme to grow and upgrade France’s rail infrastructure.

In early 2021, we added rolling stock to our pool of eligible assets, making our green bond programme the world’s first to offer investment in both infrastructure and operations.

Since 2023, SNCF SA has combined our green bonds and green commercial paper frameworks into one Green Securities Framework, providing a single registration document for our auditors and second-party opinion providers.

Between 2016 and 2024, SNCF Group raised €11.4 billion through green bonds, making us the third-largest issuer in France and a leading issuer worldwide, not counting financial and sovereign institutions.

Between 2016 and 2022, the investments funded by our green bonds prevented over 54.7 million tonnes of CO₂e from being released into the air. That corresponds to over 4.4 million tonnes per billion euros invested, and equals the carbon footprint of around 79,000 people in France over 40 years.

In line with our ambition to gradually convert all of our financing to green criteria, SNCF Group is working to develop new indicators and methods that will expand our base of eligible assets. These will be covered by adding to our existing methodologies or creating a new one.

We’ll keep our investors informed with regular progress reports.

In late 2019, SNCF Group signed a new €3.5 billion revolving credit facility (RCF), available for use at any time from January 2020. The RCF was intended to ensure the short-term liquidity of the newly formed Group and form a basis for future financing.

In keeping with our green financing strategy, we structured the RCF in such a way that its cost depends on our progress towards targets based on 3 environmental, social and governance (ESG) indicators:

• shrinking our carbon footprint by cutting greenhouse gas emissions
• giving renewable energies a larger share of the traction power we consume
• making our procurement more responsible by improving our use of ESG criteria to score tenders.

In late 2021, we launched a new programme of green commercial paper—the first to meet Green Bond Principles. These 3-month debt instruments total €50 billion and are earmarked for sustainable investments made by SNCF Group under our Green Commercial Paper Framework.

To develop this ground-breaking global issue, we worked with Mirova, a sustainable investment subsidiary of Natixis Investment Managers, green bond pioneer and subscriber to the issue. We plan to use its proceeds to finance both sustainable investments and operations contributing to our energy transition, including recycling, decontamination and power purchase agreements for renewable energies.

• develop alternative road fuels, such as biogas, biodiesel, electricity and hydrogen
• operate hybrid trains
• operate hydrogen trains
• eliminate diesel fuel by 2035
• eliminate heating oil by 2028

• continuously improve the environmental quality of our rolling stock
• earn HEQ (High Environmental Quality) certification for new stations
• capture braking energy from our trains and use it to power stations and neighbourhoods

• At SNCF Voyageurs, practice continuous improvement, improve occupancy rates and boost energy efficiency
• At Keolis, expand our green transport offer, including natural gas-powered buses, electric vehicles, and 100% electric school buses