Finance
Social Bonds Propel ESG Issuance to Record $732 Billion in 2020
- Pandemic, recession drove sevenfold rise in social bond sales
- BloombergNEF sees growth boosted by investors, regulators
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The global sustainable debt market grew 29% to a record $732 billion last year, helped by an explosion of bond issuance for social projects amid fallout from the pandemic, according to BloombergNEF.
“Sustainability continues to rise up on the agenda for investors, businesses and governments,” Mallory Rutigliano, a sustainable finance analyst at BNEF, said in a report Monday. “This relatively new market is now being seen as a tool global economies can use to build back greener and socially fairer.”