October 2024 | Sustainable Finance Market Highlights

The third quarter of 2024 registered a total volume of $323 billion in green, social and sustainability (GSS+) bond and loan issuances according to Environmental Finance (EF data), a slight decrease from the second quarter.  

In its Q3 Quarterly Report, the International Capital Market Association (ICMA) found that green bonds were again at the top of the market, representing more than half of all sustainable bond issuances year-to-date.   

Sustainability-linked bond issuances, on the other hand, still accounted for only 4% of the sustainable bond market year-to-date, their smallest share since 2020 (ICMA). While underperforming on the bond side, sustainability-linked loan transactions represented more than 50% of all lending transactions in the last quarter (EF data).  

In terms of market developments, the ICMA Green Enabling Project Guidance, which aims at catalyzing and scaling the transition to a low-carbon economy, has attracted interest following its release at the end of the second quarter (ICMA).   

This followed other important publications from ICMA, notably the expansion of the Sustainability-Linked Bonds KPI Registry to include further biodiversity-related KPIs, and the Sustainability-Linked Loans financing Bond guidelines, which we covered in our past newsletter.  

Finally, The Climate Bonds Initiative (CBI) released updates to its green bond taxonomy to include the Climate Bonds Resilience Taxonomy which specifically addresses climate resilience investment opportunities (CBI).