Green debt markets are rapidly growing while product design and standards are evolving. Many policymakers and investors view green debt as an important component in the policy mix to achieve the transition to a low carbon economy and ensure the pricing of climate risks. Our analysis contributes to the nascent literature on the environmental impact of green debt by documenting the CO2 emission intensity of corporate green debt issuers. We find lower emission intensities for green bond issuers relative to other firms, but no difference for green loan and sustainability-linked loan borrowers. Green bond, green loan, and sustainability-linked loan borrowers lower their emission intensity over time at a faster rate than other firms.
This guidance note aims to help bond issuers and their advisors to understand the process and key considerations for a successful green bond issuance. Demand for green bonds and other sustainable finance products is increasing rapidly, and issuers are seeing an opportunity to be part of the green bond market. This publication covers all the steps required to follow best practices in labeling bonds as green. It includes examples, links to further details, and key resources for green bond issuers and their deal teams.
Green Bonds are a relatively new form of financing that’s winning over banks and investors, as it offers increased financial returns, reduced risk, and opportunities for innovation. This book is the ultimate resource for anyone looking to learn more about the basics of Green Bonds.
Bachelor Thesis from the year 2020 in the subject Economics - Finance, grade: 1,7, Wiesbaden University of Applied Sciences (Wiesbaden Business School), course: Finance, language: English, abstract: This thesis aims to analyse the Green Bond market and its protagonists in order to assess its long-term potential in financing the necessary changes on earth. To ensure that readers without profound financial literacy can comprehend the paper, the second chapter gives an overview of the debt capital market instrument "bonds" and its main aspects. The tools used to assess the protagonists' international competitiveness as part of the international analysis are introduced here as well. The third part deals with "Green Bonds" in particular. It consists of important general information and a widespread market overview. Section four comprises the international market and competitiveness analyses of the main market players: the EU, United States and China (with Hong Kong SAR). A future prospect for the Green Bond market, based on the outcomes of a brief "expert interview" the author distributed among professionals working in the financial world, is given in chapter five. To round off the thesis, the sixth and final chapter forms the conclusion that draws a bow back to the introduction.
Despite exhibiting remarkable growth, the green bond market still represents less than 1 percent of the global bond market. This paper identifies two challenges that might slow the adoption of green bonds and presents a menu of responses that policymakers, regulators, and public financial institutions can use to offset these challenges. Specifically, it explores two key dimensions: (i) the risk profile of the green bond instrument and (ii) the transaction costs associated with issuance of and reporting on green bonds. New approaches to risk design and technology-based approaches are essential to untap the potential of green bond markets, particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean and other developing regions. The incorporation of financial mechanisms such as covered bonds and guarantees can adequately address the risk of the issues, making the market more attractive for investors. Enhanced regulation and education and leveraging efficiencies of new technologies such as distributed ledger technologies can substantially reduce monitoring and reporting costs, while improving transparency in the use of proceeds and market integrity.
Master's Thesis from the year 2015 in the subject Law - Miscellaneous, grade: B, London School of Economics (Department of Law), course: Environmental Law, language: English, abstract: Green Bonds are a novel form of long term debt financing instruments enabling continued and sustainable economic growth in a finite physical world. The market for green bonds or Climate Bonds comprises of debt instruments, the proceeds of which are Earmarked for use in environmentally friendly projects. Introduced by the European Investment Bank (EIB) in 2007, the market for green bonds has been growing rapidly, reaching the record volume of USD 36.6 billion in 2014. Rapidly growing markets offer a myriad of opportunities for investors, but those opportunities come with certain risks attached. The risk addressed by this paper is a twofold one. Firstly, there is a risk to the environment if the proceeds of earmarked bonds are used for projects that do not actually benefit the environment. Secondly, there is a legal and financial risk to bondholders that arises when issuers of green bonds use funds for purposes other than those set out in the bond indenture. There are two steps that need to be taken in order to address these risks at the same time. First, a uniform standard of what defines a green bond or a specified range of Shades of Green has to be found and implemented. Second, a green bond needs to state explicitly, in its indenture, what purposes the funds will be used for and of what shade of green those purposes are, in order to empower bondholders to take legal action if covenants are broken. These clauses will be referred to as Green Covenants. This paper will start by briefly setting out the threat posed by climate change before continuing to introduce green bonds, explaining how they operate and why they will become part of the solution to climate change. Four varieties of green bonds, issued by four very different entities, will then be examined and it will be shown that there are certain shortcomings they all have in common. This paper goes on by suggesting that these shortcomings can be addressed by introducing stricter and, most importantly, legally enforceable covenants that determine what proceeds of green bonds can be used for. This will be proven by comparing instruments of English Law and United States (US) Federal Law that are currently available to bondholders, with powers a stronger set of covenants will make available to bondholders in the future.
This report describes the development of the green bond market as an innovative instrument for green finance, and provides a review of policy actions and options to promote further market development and growth. Since 2007-08, so-called “green bonds” have emerged and the market has risen from ...
Judging by the sheer number of papers reviewed in this Handbook, the empirical analysis of firms' financing and investment decisions—empirical corporate finance—has become a dominant field in financial economics. The growing interest in everything "corporate is fueled by a healthy combination of fundamental theoretical developments and recent widespread access to large transactional data bases. A less scientific—but nevertheless important—source of inspiration is a growing awareness of the important social implications of corporate behavior and governance. This Handbook takes stock of the main empirical findings to date across an unprecedented spectrum of corporate finance issues, ranging from econometric methodology, to raising capital and capital structure choice, and to managerial incentives and corporate investment behavior. The surveys are written by leading empirical researchers that remain active in their respective areas of interest. With few exceptions, the writing style makes the chapters accessible to industry practitioners. For doctoral students and seasoned academics, the surveys offer dense roadmaps into the empirical research landscape and provide suggestions for future work.*The Handbooks in Finance series offers a broad group of outstanding volumes in various areas of finance*Each individual volume in the series should present an accurate self-contained survey of a sub-field of finance*The series is international in scope with contributions from field leaders the world over
The ASEAN+3 Bond Market Guide series provides country-specific information on the investment climate, rules, laws, opportunities, and characteristics of local bond markets in Asia and the Pacific. It aims to help bond market issuers, investors, and financial intermediaries understand the local context and encourage greater participation in the region’s rapidly developing bond markets. This edition focuses on the Inter-Bank Bond Market in the People’s Republic of China, which is one of the country’s most important bond markets and one of only two that are accessible to foreign investment.
In traditional bond markets, sovereign bonds provide benchmarks and serve as catalysts for the corporate bond market development. Contrary to the usual sequence of bond market development, sovereign issuers are latecomers to sustainable bond markets. Yet, our empirical study finds that sovereign green bond issuance can have quantitative and qualitative benefits for the development of private sustainable bond markets. Our results suggest that both the number and the size of corporate green bond issuance increase more in a jurisdiction after the sovereign debut. The results are more pronounced in countries with stronger climate policies. Sovereign green bond issuance also improves the quality of green verification standards in the corporate bond market more generally, consistent with the aim of fostering third-party reviews and promoting best practice in green reporting and verification. Finally, our work provides evidence that the sovereign debut increases liquidity and diminishes yield spreads of corporate green bonds in the same jurisdiction.
