Lima, Peru, 11 December 2014: Today, The Climate Bonds Initiative, makes a full list of labelled green bonds publicly available for the first time. The list can be found on the Climate Bonds website. This is part of the Initiative’s effort to promote greater transparency in the green bonds market, a market that has trebled in size over the past year.
Apart from basic bond reference data, ‘second party opinion’ information has been embedded into the list to make it easier for investors and stakeholders to locate these reviews. This is also the first time that any organisation has collated a public green bonds list with second opinions details.
Labelled green bonds data can be accessed here.
Green bonds – an innovative financial instruments that fund projects or assets with ‘climate benefits’ experienced outstanding growth in 2014 with $35 billion issued up to date – triple the 2013 figure. The market is expected to reach $100bn in 2015 and to treble again by 2018.
Sean Kidney, CEO of Climate Bonds Initiative, speaking at the UN Climate Conference in Peru, said: “Since the Climate Bonds Initiative started in 2009 one of our key work streams has been tracking the labelled green bond market. We’ve been delving through bond prospectuses, public statements and talking to industry players. With the fast growth of the market has come an increasing demand to see the full list of bonds - so we decided it was time to launch a public list of labelled green bonds.”
Kidney added: “Second opinions are included because they provide investors with additional transparency into the bonds’ planned use of proceeds or green assets. However not all bonds have second opinions; 42% of issuers chose not to get one in 2014.”
“Although not strictly required they are a great tool for investors and key for market confidence. We wanted to highlight those issuers who chose to get a second opinion and make it easy for investors and other stakeholders to access these reports.”
“Of course not all bonds need a second opinion; those issued by a wind farm are going to be green. However that does not apply to most use of proceeds bonds. These need a second opinion.”
“Our blogging on new green bonds will continue. The new list will make it easier for stakeholders to view Climate Bond's relevant blog post through a link.”
The green bond list provides basic reference data of bonds issued such as issuer name, issue date, and tenor. It also shows whether the issuer chose to get a second opinion on the green credentials of the bond, who gave the second opinion, where one can find the opinion (if public) and Climate Bonds comment on the bond (Climate Bonds blog).
The Climate Bonds Initiative is focusing on capturing extra-financial data on green aspects of the bond. Financial data (i.e. live data, pricing) is covered by specialist services such as Bloomberg and Thompson Reuters.
