Green investment

Toledo-based Owens Corning, known by most people for its building insulation and roofing shingles, put another notch in its belt recently by selling $450 million in green bonds.

The company enticed investors to buy up 10-year bonds, the proceeds of which will be used for either renewable energy or making more energy efficient and climate-friendly products. The bonds are essentially instruments for which OC pays interest to investors, who provide the money for the firm to advance its sustainability goals.

The Fortune 500 firm, headquartered in downtown Toledo, maintains that it is the first industrial firm nationwide to sell green bonds and one of only a handful of all companies to do so. It is a notable leadership step.

The company aspires to be a net positive company, not just financially but where its operations and products do more for the environment than it uses from it. In its latest sustainability report, it outlined some of its accomplishments, including creating its first formaldehyde-free perimeter fire containment system in North America and increasing the number of its products made with 100 percent wind-powered electricity and reduced embodied carbon. That, in turn, helps its customers use lower-carbon products to build greener structures.

OC was ranked No. 1 in the spring as the Best Corporate Citizen by Corporate Responsibility magazine. That distinction, outdoing Microsoft Corp. and other innovative firms, was based on several factors from finance to climate change to governance.

The local company’s green bonds will be used for long-term purchases of renewable energy for its operations, improving the energy efficiency of its products and investing in programs to substantially reduce waste or to increase recycling of its products.

Investors must have been impressed by the green bonds, as they sold quickly after they were announced in late July. Frank O’Brien-Bernini, the Toledo company’s chief sustainability officer, said he anticipates OC’s green bonds will spur other manufacturers to do the same.

The Pink Panther company has helped metro Toledo finish among the top five communities nationwide in Site Selection magazine’s sustainability rankings this year.

These green bonds should bolster Toledo’s sustainability standing in the future and help OC and its shareholders, and, better yet, should be another step forward to improve the environment.