SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA AND HOOD RIVER, OREGON — Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) (AA) successfully launched the first Green Commercial Paper (CP) notes issued by any U.S. municipal electric utility. Barclays was the sole dealer for the $25M new money tax-exempt Series L CP, which was issued on April 29, 2025 for a tenor of 36 days at a rate of 3.15% and attracted one new impact fund investor. The issuance was also the first to carry the new Kestrel-Verified Green Commercial Paper Certificate, an independent external review from Kestrel, the leading verifier of green bonds in U.S. public finance.
The participation of a new buyer was a positive signal, particularly given the broader market dynamics following the April tax season. During that period, elevated redemptions from money market funds created temporary pressure in the short-term tax-exempt market, with commercial paper rates rising to the 3.5%–4% range.
SMUD has the most ambitious clean energy goal of any large utility in the United States. With a commitment to 100% zero carbon by 2030 — 15 years ahead of California’s 2045 mandate — SMUD is a national leader in decarbonizing electric power generation. SMUD will use proceeds from the Green CP notes to fund improvements to generation, transmission and distribution systems. The projects improve efficiency and reliability of the electric system, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and support SMUD’s clean energy transition.
“SMUD is leading California’s clean energy transformation through our 2030 Zero Carbon Plan, and we’re committed to making that transition equitable and affordable for all our customers,” said SMUD Chief Financial Officer Scott Martin. “This Green Commercial Paper issuance is more than a financial tool — it’s a reflection of our long-term commitment to clean energy innovation, community impact and maintaining some of the lowest rates anywhere in California. The certification recognizes the strength of our strategy to deliver carbon-free energy in a way that benefits everyone we serve.”
SMUD issued an additional $25M of Green CP notes on May 6, 2025 for a tenor of 63 days at a rate of 2.9% and expects to issue additional notes under its $400M authorized Green CP program over the next 12 months.
Kestrel-Verified Green CP signals commercial paper aligned with sustainability, transition and resilience objectives. Kestrel’s Green Commercial Paper Program Framework establishes standards for issuance of Kestrel-Verified Green CP. The approach follows International Capital Market Association recommendations for Sustainability-Linked Commercial Paper.
“SMUD’s green commercial paper ranks in the top 5% of all electric power utilities with a cumulative Sustainability Score of 4.68/5,” said Monica Reid, CEO of Kestrel. “The green CP designation was linked to SMUD’s Sustainability Scores and verified transition plan. We are honored to have SMUD as the inaugural issuer of Kestrel-Verified Green CP. They add this to their long line of firsts.”
Kestrel Sustainability Intelligence™ for municipal markets helps set the market standard for sustainable finance. We do this through verification and our comprehensive Sustainability Analysis and Scores. Kestrel is a leading provider of external reviews for green, social and sustainability bond transactions. We evaluate transactions in public and private markets for conformance with international sustainability standards.
As the nation’s sixth-largest, community-owned, not-for-profit electric service provider, SMUD has been providing low-cost, reliable electricity to Sacramento County for more than 75 years. SMUD is a recognized industry leader and award winner for its innovative energy efficiency programs, renewable power technologies and for its sustainable solutions for a healthier environment. In 2023, SMUD’s power supply was, on average, 78 percent carbon free, and SMUD has a goal to reach zero carbon in its electricity production by 2030. SMUD’s rates and customer bills are consistently among the lowest in California, and are today, on average, more than 50 percent lower than its neighboring investor-owned utility. For more information on SMUD’s Zero Carbon Plan and its customer programs, visit smud.org.
Read the Kestrel-Verified Green Commercial Paper Program Framework.
From time to time, Kestrel updates methodologies for Sustainability Analysis and Scores. Read the Methodology Release Notes for Q1 2025.
In January 2025, Kestrel began including a new section in our Second Party Opinions: a “Scorecard” summarizing key findings from Kestrel’s Sustainability Analysis and Scores product offering. Scorecards allow investors to evaluate bonds against an industry benchmark and contribute quantitative metrics to the designation, adding transparency and making Second Party Opinions even more valuable and useful to investors.
Colorado Springs, Colorado and Hood River, Oregon, September 4, 2024 – Investortools, a leading provider of fixed-income software solutions, and Kestrel, the US market leader in verifying the impact of municipal bonds, today announced a new partnership to add Kestrel’s Sustainability Scores for municipal bonds to Investortools’ products. This partnership expands access to Kestrel benchmarks on transition alignment, sustainability, and resilience for municipal bonds at the series level.
“Kestrel Sustainability Scores will provide our clients with additional tools to evaluate the sustainability and risk profiles of municipal bonds in their portfolios or under consideration for investment,” explained Tim Hadley, Senior Vice President at Investortools. “Kestrel’s insights are valuable across all types of municipal bonds, not solely those with an explicit ESG focus. By integrating these scores into our software, clients can seamlessly incorporate them into their workflow, enhancing the efficiency of their decision-making processes.”
Investortools will provide Kestrel Sustainability Scores to customers at no additional cost within the Perform, Smart, CreditScope, and Custom Index Manager products. Subscribers to Kestrel also have access to deep analytics on sustainability, resilience, and uses of proceeds that drive the scores, as well as Kestrel’s identification of unlabeled but eligible green and social bonds. Kestrel covers Municipal Primary Market deals rated investment grade A or better and $20 million par or greater. Coverage of the secondary market is currently over $2.0 trillion par and is continuously expanding.
The collaboration builds on Investortools’ current ability for clients to score bonds based on environmental, social, and governance data attributes. These scores are then used to make informed decisions regarding portfolio construction, compliance, and maintenance.
“Investortools delivers critical workflow tools to the buy-side and sell-side in the municipal market. Many of our customers shared their desire to access Kestrel analytics through Investortools. We are excited to work closely with the team at Investortools to improve access to fundamental information about transition alignment, sustainability, and resilience in municipal finance,” said Monica Reid, CEO of Kestrel. “We aim to empower investors with these benchmarks to help them accurately price risk.”
About Investortools
Having continually innovated to serve the needs of the fixed-income marketplace for nearly four decades, Investortools systems have become a prerequisite for fixed-income investment management success. Investortools’ comprehensive suite of products is available as a SaaS solution, addressing all aspects of the investment lifecycle from portfolio, order, and execution management to performance analytics and attribution, 2a-7 compliance, and credit analysis. Investortools is a trusted partner for more than 200 retail and institutional SMA managers, fund managers, broker-dealers, and fixed-income market participants who manage over $1 trillion in assets within the platform. To explore Investortools’ commitment to innovation, visit www.investortools.com.
About Kestrel
Kestrel provides Sustainability Intelligence™ for municipal markets, helping to set the market standard for sustainable finance. Kestrel is also a leading provider of external reviews for green, social, and sustainability bond transactions and a Climate Bonds Initiative Approved Verifier. The company evaluates corporate and municipal bonds in all sectors worldwide for conformance with international green and social bond standards. Kestrel offers comprehensive Sustainability Analysis and Scores covering the entire muni market at the series level, and other types of fixed-income investments. Kestrel also offers custom solutions including evaluation of transition plans.
Kestrel Sustainability Intelligence™ is now available on the Bloomberg Terminal and via Bloomberg Data License
Hood River, Oregon, March 28, 2024 – Kestrel today announced that its Sustainability Analysis and ESG Impact Scores are now accessible on the Bloomberg Terminal and available for Data License subscribers, complementing Bloomberg’s existing ESG data sets.
Kestrel’s offering is the first sustainability solution to tackle the entire municipal market at the series level. It serves as an ESG benchmark and provides original analysis and transparency on issuers’ concrete actions to lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and incorporate sustainability in their bond-financed activities. Kestrel also reveals the presence of sector-specific risk mitigants and resilience features. By using over 100 distinct methodologies, Kestrel assesses municipal bonds with a focus on materiality. Scores range from 1 (low) to 5 (high) and reflect best practices for sustainability, ESG impact, and risk mitigation.
Bloomberg customers can view Kestrel’s numeric ESG Impact Scores, and Bloomberg Terminal users who subscribe to Kestrel will have access to unique and actionable sustainability intelligence. These insights include information on uses of proceeds, risk mitigants and impact, sources of repayment and potential flashpoints, alignment with UN SDGs at the target level, and eligibility for green, social or sustainability bond designation, regardless of whether the bond is labeled at issuance.
Kestrel covers all Municipal Primary Market deals that are rated investment grade A or better and $20 million par or greater. Coverage of the secondary market is currently over $2.0 trillion par and is continuously expanding.
“Kestrel has been at the forefront of providing sustainability intelligence on US Public Finance with our Second Party Opinions and reporting on green, social, and sustainability bonds,” said Monica Reid, CEO of Kestrel. “We are excited to offer our comprehensive sustainability analysis and ESG Impact Scores covering the entire muni market at the series level on the Bloomberg Terminal. We aim to empower investors with sustainability insights and new information to help them accurately price risk. Our offering reveals sustainability attributes and risk mitigants in bond-financed activities, and we are the first in the market to do this. With their focus on sustainable finance solutions, Bloomberg was a natural fit to help get this in the hands of investors. In light of the shifting regulatory landscape and the demand for long-term risk-adjusted returns, investors need the full picture of ESG in terms of sustainability and risk mitigants. Kestrel’s insights are useful for all types of investments, not just ESG focused ones.”
Subscribers to the Bloomberg Terminal can review Bloomberg’s ESG Solutions, including Kestrel’s data, at {BESG <GO>}.
About Kestrel
Kestrel provides Sustainability Intelligence™ for municipal markets, helping to set the market standard for sustainable finance. Kestrel is a leading provider of external reviews for green, social and sustainability bond transactions and a Climate Bonds Initiative Approved Verifier. The company is qualified to evaluate corporate and municipal bonds, as well as the issuers, in all asset classes worldwide for conformance with international green and social bond standards.
Hood River, Oregon, March 6, 2024 – Kestrel announced today that Build America Mutual, a leading insurer of US municipal bonds, has selected Kestrel’s Sustainability Intelligence data for enterprise-wide use. Kestrel’s data will enhance BAM’s existing credit underwriting and risk management processes, with a particular focus on identifying municipal bond issuers that are taking proactive steps to improve their communities’ long-term resilience, including the ability to recover from damage caused by natural disasters.
“Kestrel’s data is valuable because it matches our granular focus on individual issuers and helps our underwriters identify long-term risks,” said BAM Chief Risk Officer Laura Levenstein. “BAM’s guaranty is unconditional and irrevocable for the life of the bonds we insure and is backed with deep credit analysis on each credit.”
Kestrel’s offering is the first sustainability solution to tackle the entire municipal market at the series level. It serves as a benchmark and provides original analysis and transparency on issuers’ concrete actions to lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and incorporate sustainability in bond-financed activities. Kestrel also reveals the presence of sector-specific risk mitigants. By using over 100 distinct methodologies, Kestrel assesses municipal bonds for sustainability and impact with a focus on materiality. To support their research and commitment to transparency BAM sought a sustainability data provider that could deliver high-quality, comprehensive coverage at the series level.
“Kestrel has been at the forefront of providing sustainability intelligence on US Public Finance with our Second Party Opinions and reporting on green, social, and sustainability bonds,” said Monica Reid, CEO of Kestrel. “We aim to empower insurers, investors, and other market participants with sustainability insights and new information to help them accurately price risk. Our offering reveals sustainability attributes and risk mitigants in bond-financed activities, and we are the first in the market to do this. With their focus on transparency and purpose of providing a financial guaranty to lower issuers’ cost of borrowing, BAM was a natural fit for our data and analytics. In light of the shifting regulatory landscape and the demand for long-term risk-adjusted returns, investors need the full picture in terms of sustainability fundamentals and risk mitigants.”
About Build America Mutual
BAM is a mutual bond insurance company operated for the benefit of its members – the cities, states, and other municipal entities that use BAM’s financial guaranty to lower their cost of borrowing. BAM is the preferred provider of bond insurance for the National League of Cities. As of December 31, 2024, BAM’s insured par outstanding totaled more than $100 billion for more than 5,000 municipal issuer-members from 49 states. Learn more at buildamerica.com/about-bam
About Kestrel
Kestrel provides Sustainability Intelligence™ for municipal markets, helping to set the market standard for sustainable finance. Kestrel is a leading provider of external reviews for green, social, and sustainability bond transactions and a Climate Bonds Initiative Approved Verifier. The company is qualified to evaluate corporate and municipal bonds, as well as the issuers, in all asset classes worldwide for conformance with international green and social bond standards.
Hood River, Oregon, September 27, 2023 – Kestrel, the trusted US municipal market leader for Green, Social and Sustainability Bonds designations, announced completion of its 200th external review. Since becoming a Climate Bonds Initiative Approved Verifier in 2017 and releasing its first Second Party Opinion in 2018, Kestrel market share has grown exponentially. In Q2 2023, 80% of municipal bonds with an external review were verified by Kestrel.
As a certified Women’s Business Enterprise and a team with deep sector and practitioners’ expertise, Kestrel has become known as an effective collaborator and a trusted voice in the market. Kestrel is proud to have been a part of many pivotal market developments:
Known for customer service, Kestrel has been a central player in the evolution of sustainable finance in the municipal market and a driver for innovation and market growth. “We have a special role in the market,” said Monica Reid, Kestrel’s CEO and founder. “Against the backdrop of climate change, the landscape of finance is changing. There’s a need for people like us that can speak both science and finance, or climate change and finance, or social equity and finance. The world needs translators to make sense of data, so that everybody can understand and have confidence in the value of different investments in relation to climate change and social justice.”
The Kestrel team is looking forward to continuous market evolution, expanded adoption of robust reporting schemes, and continued partnership and collaboration in the years ahead. Kestrel also verifies corporate bonds and structured finance transactions, and recently became the first US-based Climate Bonds Initiative Approved Verifier for Entity Level Verification under the Climate Bonds Standard. “We are excited to move toward Issuer-level certification,” said Ms. Reid, “it opens the door for so much innovation. Maybe we will see green equities in 2024.”
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About Kestrel
Kestrel Sustainability Intelligence™ for municipal markets helps set the market standard for sustainable finance. We do this through verification and our comprehensive Analysis and Scores.
Kestrel is a leading provider of external reviews for green, social and sustainability bond transactions. We are qualified to evaluate corporate and municipal bonds in all asset classes worldwide for conformance with international green and social bond standards.
kestrelesg.com | info@kestrelesg.com | +1 800-756-8099
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San Diego Unified School District has an excellent Sustainability Bonds program. Kestrel Second Party Opinions are designed to highlight key environmental and social impacts of each issuance, and the great work of senior executive directors of facilities planning and construction like Lee Dulgeroff. Investors appreciate the added transparency and assurance from Kestrel Opinions. The District is showing leadership in sustainable finance in California and paving the way for other school districts to follow and see the same benefits as Mark Young at KNN describes. We’re looking forward to continued success of this program!