Research, Reports & Publications

Bloomberg Strengthens Green Bond Accountability

Jun 22, 2017 12:10 PM ET
In 2016, $95 billion of new green bonds were issued, nearly doubling the previous record of $48 billion in 2015.

Originally posted on https://www.bloomberg.com/bcause/product/.

As interest in green bonds continued to grow in the past year, so has interest in integrating environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors into fixed income investing. In line with this trend, Bloomberg is supporting credit analyst research and portfolio managers’ investment decision-making with comprehensive company-reported ESG data and third-party research providers’ performance scores.

We have integrated support for fixed income portfolios into our ESG scoring model, giving credit investors the ability to generate a custom ESG performance rank on the issuers of corporate bonds. Our carbon footprint tool can also generate a carbon intensity and carbon efficiency value for any corporate bond portfolio. In the past year, we also added coverage of corporate debt issuers whose ESG data wasn’t linked to public company sustainability data.

Bloomberg is also bringing greater transparency, discoverability and integrity to green bonds on the Bloomberg Professional® service and beyond. Working in close collaboration with Bloomberg New Energy Finance to provide green bond market governance, research, data and analytics, Bloomberg has established itself as a leading voice in the global community of stakeholders shaping the emerging green bond universe.

Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s analysts based in 16 cities over six continents track the financial, economic and policy trends driving the energy transformation in which green bonds play a crucial role. The firm produces sophisticated data sets, proprietary models and research notes to help clients navigate through the global transition.

Bloomberg is also making green bonds more transparent and discoverable to a larger universe of investors. We are improving the integrity of the green bonds market by helping our users understand the quality of issuer disclosure as well. Bloomberg has enhanced this screening process with new fields that illustrate issuer alignment with the Green Bonds Principles developed by the International Capital Markets Association.

To read Bloomberg's 2016 Impact Report, click here.