EU Green Bond Standard
In June 2019, the Commission’s Technical Expert Group on Sustainable Finance (TEG) published a report recommending the adoption of a European voluntary standard for the issuance of green bonds.
An EU Green bond standard (EU GBS) has been approached for the first time in the High-Level Expert Group on Sustainable Finance. It was then included as an action in the 2018 European Commission Action Plan.
More recently, alongside the publication of its new sustainable finance strategy on 6 July 2021, the European Commission published its proposal for a regulation to establish a voluntary EU GBS to help develop and justify the environmental ambitions of the green bond market. Once it is adopted by co-legislators, this proposed regulation will be useful for both issuers and investors of green bonds. For example, issuers will have a tool to demonstrate that they are funding legitimate green projects aligned with the EU Taxonomy and investors buying the bonds will be able to more easily assess, compare and trust that their investments are sustainable.
