While companies have issued tens of billions of dollars in green bonds in recent years for projects that cut global-warming emissions, the size of Apple's first issuance fueled speculation that other companies would follow.

The company's latest bond comes less than two weeks after President Donald Trump decided to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord, an international pact to curb greenhouse-gas emissions signed by almost 200 countries. Apple CEO Tim Cook said last week he sought to persuade the president not to withdraw.

“Leadership from the business community is essential to address the threat of climate change,” Lisa Jackson, Apple's vice president of environment, policy and social initiatives, said in the statement. The company was among those that signed an open letter pledging to continue supporting efforts to meet the Paris agreement.

Apple said it plans to use the proceeds to finance projects involving renewable energy resources and energy efficiency, among other things. The latest bond offering includes a focus on advancing Apple's goal of a closed-loop supply chain, through which products are made using only renewable resources and recycled material.

The debt issuance means Apple doesn't have to tap its vast offshore cash reserves to fund its renewables projects. The company is investing in solar energy, hydroelectric plants and biogas facilities in Arizona, California, Nevada, North Carolina, and Oregon, including $850 million on a 130-megawatt solar farm near San Francisco over the next quarter century, and it has received permission to sell power to the wholesale energy markets.

Even with cash and equivalents totaling $257 billion, Apple has issued debt totaling $99 billion to fund stock buybacks and dividends, because most of that money is held outside the U.S. and would be subject to a 35% corporate income tax if it were repatriated.

Bloomberg

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