Global green finance market update reflects growth directions
LONDON 31/10/18:00 BST: The global green bond market continues to boom, and Australia should position itself for that growth, Climate Bonds’ Head of Markets Bridget Boulle will inform a finance sector and investor audience at Climate Bonds Initiative’s flagship report, ‘Bonds and Climate Change State of the Market 2018′, launch in Sydney today.
The Climate Bonds annual analysis of the labelled green bond and wider ‘climate-aligned’ bond universe identifies over USD1.45 trillion of potential green bonds, reflecting the market has headroom for huge growth into the 2020s.
The 2018 report, now in its 7th edition, provides an analysis of the labelled global green bond market, major sectors of investment, and also the ‘climate-aligned’ universe that includes issuers of unlabelled bonds from companies in climate-related business lines and activities.
The Australian launch event being hosted by leading legal firm King & Wood Mallesons (KWM)and is the third in an international schedule that commenced at Climate Week New York City.
“Australia has a well developed and diverse labelled green bond market, led by the major banks. At the same time, there is significant potential for ASX-listed corporates to move from plain vanilla or ‘climate-aligned’ bonds to offering labelled green bonds to investors,” said Climate Bonds Initiative’s Head of Markets, Ms. Bridget Boulle. “We see significant domestic opportunities in clean energy, low carbon transport, sustainable water, waste, and green buildings. Australia should be positioning to grow local green markets and green finance expertise and capitalise on offshore trends.”
“International and domestic demand for quality green product is growing. The corporate sector responding would increase supply, deepen the local market and signal that ASX companies are transitioning their business models and capex plans in a direction consistent with national and international climate targets.”
“We see this demand for quality green product as ongoing. It’s a natural outcome of institutional investors, particularly global pension funds and asset managers lifting their ESG allocations and hedging carbon exposures whilst increasing their direct engagement with banks and large emitters on climate risk, opportunities and the development of business plans consistent with the Paris COP21 objectives.”
“With the release of the State of the Market Report and our recent Australia & NZ Green Infrastructure Investment Opportunities (GIIO) report and Australia & NZ Green Finance country briefing domestic investors and issuers now have a contemporary snapshot of global and local green finance trends to help guide investment directions,” Ms. Boulle said.
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