When the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank tested investor appetite for a A$500m (US$392m) “sustainable kangaroo” bond last month, it presented an unusual proposition: rate the bank, not the five-year, Australian dollar-denominated note.

Debt issuances are typically assessed on an individual basis by rating groups. But the Beijing-based development bank, which has a $10bn borrowing programme this year, is touting a new framework for assessing its sustainability credentials at an institutional level, which can then be applied to all of the bonds it issues.

“If you are an investor, what are the tools that you have to really judge and be assured that what you are touching, what you are investing your capital in, is being committed to the causes that you really want to support?” Domenico Nardelli, AIIB’s treasurer, told the Financial Times.