Tuesday, October 15, 2019

Green Debt

After a suggestion by reader Aristophanes I did a little digging around and discovered the Climate Bonds Initiative.  It is a non-profit that certifies and tracks bonds issued to fund "green" projects and initiatives, e.g. wind and solar farms, etc.  It  has an impressive list of funders/backers, including very heavy guns like the Rockefeller Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, HSBC, the UN, Shearman and Sterling, the Swiss Federation, etc.

Basically, their aim is to mobilize the enormous power of the $100 trillion global bond market to foster climate change solutions.

Right down my alley, in other words (smile).

I really like this notion of an  "environmental rating agency" a parallel to the traditional credit rating agencies (S&P, Moody, Fitch, etc.).  According to their site, $186 billion in green bonds have been issued so far in 2019 and they have officially certified some $32 billion of them. 

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