The market for green bonds has rapidly increased over the last years and
will continue to grow because the demand for sustainable assets exceeds the
supply by far. Issuers usually benefit from lower funding costs and from
attracting new investor groups. In turn, green bonds come with additional
challenges for issuers. A new whitepaper of our ESG experts describes the
aspects of operational readiness for green bond issuances for the Treasury
Divisions of banks.
The whitepaper already considers the
upcoming EU Green Bond Standard and covers the following topics:
·
- Strategy
and governance: Green bond issues need be aligned with the overall corporate
strategy. Furthermore, Treasury needs to set up appropriate governance
processes, which ensure that green bond proceeds are actually invested in green
projects.
- Project
selection: The assessment which assets are eligible for re-financing through
green bonds requires gathering of additional data.
- Steering:
The management of sustainable assets and liabilities must be integrated into
the overall steering processes of the banking book.
- Reporting:
The reporting requirements for green bonds have to be fulfilled.
Moreover, the whitepaper outlines a
possible software solution that helps Treasury to handle these challenges. A
Green Bond Treasury Cockpit automates the eligibility check of new assets and
is the golden source for all sustainability-relevant information. Based on a
common data set, Treasury has all steering-relevant information at a glance and
can automatically generate the required reports.
The whitepaper can be downloaded
here:
https://www.l-p-a.com/consulting/green-bonds