Sustainable investments

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Using sustainable investment indicators, we map the issuance and holdings of debt securities issued to finance sustainable projects. This can contribute to the transition to a more sustainable economy. They also provide insight in the volume of green bonds issued subject to external assurance.

This dashboard shows the following types of sustainability indicators:

Green bonds: these bonds are used to raise funds that must be used exclusively for 'green’ purposes, for example to finance the energy transition or water management.
Social bonds: these bonds are used to raise funds used for new or existing projects with a positive social outcome, e.g. affordable housing.
Sustainable bonds: these bonds are used to raise funds that must be used for projects that combine the positive social impact of social bonds and the positive climate and/or environmental impact of green bonds.
Sustainability-linked bonds: these bonds are used not only to finance sustainable projects but also to boost the sustainability performance of the issuer itself through financial incentives. For example, interest rate discounts can be triggered once the issuer achieves pre-set sustainability targets. In addition, interest rate mark-ups may apply if sustainability targets are not met.

When is an investment sustainable?

The issuer itself can label an investment as sustainable, based on its own guidelines in accordance with an international standard, such as the Climate Bond Initiative or the ICMA Green Bonds Principles. There are no unambiguous international standards yet for determining when a bond is genuinely sustainable.

Green bond holding information shows the type of sectors that hold these bonds. Issuance information (value outstanding) shows the sectors that raised this green capital.

Comparison with external assurance

Besides indicators labelled by the issuer, there are also external parties who can provide assurance that a bond is green. In such a case, the external party assesses the bonds against the issuer’s own green standard. Such external assessment provides increased assurance that a bond is actually green, reducing the likelihood of an issuer wrongly labelling the bond as green (greenwashing).

More information about sustainability figures

This dashboard is part of a series of sustainability statistics compiled by euro area central banks. View the tables and read more about the methodology in the "Explanatory notes to data table” tab of:

Table 4.5.1: Indicators related to the holdings of bonds with sustainability characteristics.
Table 4.5.2: Indicators related to the issuance of bonds with sustainability characteristics.
Table 17.1: Carbon indicators for the Dutch financial sector.
Table 17.2: Physical risk indicators for the Dutch financial sector.

A full overview of the data sources and methods can be found in:

The ECB’s main report on climate data.

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