European green bonds
EU green bonds
The first environmental and sustainable global bond standard.
The European green bond standard (EUGBs) is the first standard in the world which offers environmentally sustainable bonds that are made available to investors globally.
Green bonds are a type of fixed-income instrument that are specifically earmarked to fund environmentally friendly and climate-related projects.
What are the benefits?
- increases transparency to improve market efficiency and drive more investments
- reduces the risk of greenwashing in the green bonds market
- helps channel more money into carbon neutral and lower polluting technologies and production processes
- obliges issuers to demonstrate the funding of green projects aligned with the EU taxonomy
Who will use EU green bonds?
Issuers: will have to demonstrate that they are funding green projects aligned with the EU taxonomy in order be awarded the EUGB label
Investors will be able to:
- more easily assess investments
- compare and trust that their investments are sustainable
7 debt issuers from 2018 & 48 from 2017 have already contributed over 34bn euros to the market.
There are 145 green bond issuers, which represent 1/3 of global issuers.
The international green bonds market
The green bond market has seen exponential growth since 2007.
Annual green bond issuance broke through the USD half trillion mark for the first time in 2021, a 75% increase on 2020.
50% growth: The green bond market, both globally and at EU level, grew by an average of 50 % per year in the period 2015-2020.
Green bond issuance is, however, small compared to total bond issuance, representing about 3 to 3.5 % of overall bond issuance = lots of potential for green bond growth.
51% of the global volume of green bonds is issued in the EU.
Over one third of global green bonds are issued in euros
- EUR = 39% / 1249 billion
- USD = 27% / 872.9 billion
- CNY = 16% / 511.1 billion
- GBP = 3% / 99.2 billion
- SEK = 3% 86.2 billion
- Others = 12% / 387.6 billion
- 100% = 3206 billion
Green bonds issued by year, globally
Year Bond issuance (USD)
2016 103,226,718,466.00
2017 187,188,192,680.00
2018 209,635,684,937.00
2019 342,211,190,993.00
2020 358,180,929,346.00
2021 699,318,092,470.00
2022 642,510,484,525.00
Last review: 5 February 2025