They keep coming... World Bank issues $550m short-dated green bond; with EIB takes 2014 "labelled" total to $1.3bn.

Today, AAA-rated World Bank (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development) launched a USD 550mn 18-month floating-rate World Bank Green Bond.

 

Lead managers were BoAML, Goldman Sachs and SEB. Investors included Blackrock, TIAA-CREF and Goldman Sachs Private Wealth Management. World Bank Green Bonds are support the Bank’s lending to eligible development programs that address the challenges of climate change in the developing world.

With the two EIB bonds already issued this year, this bond takes the total green bond issuance in 2014 to over $1.3bn - to put that in context, it's already more than 10% of the total issuance of 2013 and we're only 15 days into the year. The development banks are keeping up the pace - will the corporates follow?

 

*Note, we refer to these bonds as part of the 'labelled' market because they have been labelled and marketed as green. Bonds have been used to finance climate-related infrastructure such as rail for decades but only a small portion of these bonds have actually been labelled as green or climate bonds by their issuers. See our estimate of the 'unlabelled' market here.