European Green Bonds Standard: an ambitious tool to favour green financial markets and ensure transparency for investors

The Renew Europe Group welcomes today’s plenary backing of the European Green Bonds regulation, which aims to create for the first time in the EU a high level, uniform green bond standard. This will provide both issuers and investors with clearer and more transparent criteria for the financing of sustainable investments towards a low carbon economy, essential to meet the European green deal’s goals.

MEP Gilles Boyer (Horizons, France), Renew Europe´s shadow rapporteur on this file, declared:

"We need to speed up the environmental transition. With this clear and ambitious standard, Europe is leading the way to provide greater transparency, trust and confidence in a rapidly growing green bond market. Everyone, from individual citizens to large investors, who wishes to, will be able to have clear access to finance that contributes concretely to protecting the planet. We are confident that this European standard will become a global reference for sustainable investments"

The endorsed text foresees guarantees for all concerned stakeholders. Issuers will have a robust instrument to demonstrate that they are funding legitimate green projects aligned with the EU taxonomy, while investors buying the bonds will be able to assess, compare and trust that their investments are sustainable, thereby reducing the risks posed by greenwashing and increasing market confidence.

During negotiations, our political group advocated for a voluntary, ambitious, gold standard for green bond issuance, to ensure that Europe remains at the forefront of the green transition, as well as the importance of ensuring that independent external reviewers monitor the standard.