Background: With the first green bond being issued in 2008 as a joint venture between World Bank Organization and the Swedish bank SEB the financial instrument has made an impact on the financial markets. With a high demand for sustainable investments in Sweden partly due to policies a premium for the green bonds is to be expected at least according to theory. The real estate market has adapted to the increased demand for green investments by moving more towards green bonds, and rightfully so as it is one of the largest polluters seen by sector. In result, it is also one of the largest issuers of bonds which creates an excellent opportunity to research the industry as there is plenty of data available. Purpose: This report will examine the premium of green bonds in the Swedish real estate market. Furthermore, it will also examine the effects of Covid-19 and to what extent this pandemic had an impact on green bonds. Method: The thesis examines the Option Adjusted Spread (OAS) of 166 bonds of 9 different companies from the start of 2016 to December 2020 within the Swedish real estate market. Control variables such as Company risk, Market risk and Macroeconomic variables were used in an OLS regression to estimate the premium. The effect of the Covid-19 pandemic was also examined. Conclusion: After analyzing 53 green and 113 conventional bonds no significant results were found on how premium differs between green and conventional bonds. However more general findings were found that suggest bonds become more sought during the Covid-19. It was further found that the green bond market is rapidly growing and may in a few years be in a better position to be examined.

Background: The impact of climate change on people's health and lives is a growing concern, with viruses, malnutrition, and heat stress potentially causing up to 250,000 deaths per year between 2030-2050. To address this issue, organizations and institutions are taking action to create a more sustainable world. One major step was signing the Paris Agreement in 2015, and financial investors have also taken on greater responsibility for the environmental transition. In response, green bonds have become increasingly popular. The key difference between a green and conventional bond is that the green bond is issued with the specific purpose of financing green projects. However, investors are still unsure about the financial performance of green bonds compared to conventional bonds, as the costs of issuing them may impact profitability and economic benefits. Purpose: This report examines how the premium on green corporate bonds, i.e., greenium, evolves over time. The main objective is to assess the performance of green bonds compared to conventional bonds in terms of yield to maturity and the impact of a bond’s green label. To gain a thorough understanding of the development of greenium over time, it is important to examine the factors that influence the yield differences between green and conventional bonds. This analysis of the existence and evolution of greenium and its driving forces can offer valuable insights to investors interested in sustainable finance and green instruments. Method: This study analyzed 267 green corporate bonds and 3,997 conventional corporate bonds issued globally between 2015-2022. The greenium was calculated by comparing green and conventional bonds' average yield to maturity. Additionally, three OLS regressions were conducted to assess the impact of a bond's green label and factors driving the yield to maturity of both green and conventional bonds, respectively. The regressions included control variables such as green label, issuer rating, time to maturity, seniority, and local currency. Conclusion: After analyzing the results, we found that conventional bonds performed better in yields than green bonds over the entire sample. However, in specific individual years, the green bonds outperformed the conventional bonds, indicating that the greenium is not negative each year separately. Regardless, conventional bonds generate higher yields over the whole sample period, implying that greenium exists. The green label does not significantly influence the variance of bond returns in all time periods, suggesting that investors' preference for environmentally friendly bonds is inconsistent across the entire sample. Additionally, the determining factors for conventional bonds are more predictable than for green bonds, and the future events of green bonds can be challenging to forecast due to the larger variation in the effects on yield to maturity.

This paper examines what effects announcements of green bond issuances have on publicly traded firms’ stock prices in Europe. Signalling theory is used in line with suggestions from previous research to investigate potential abnormal returns. Using a dataset of 432 green bond issuances from 165 unique publicly traded firms on European stock exchanges, we conduct an event study around the announcement day [0,1] estimating abnormal returns using the market model. To further investigate determinants of abnormal returns we conduct a multiple linear regression analysis. We document no statistic or economic significant effect in our full sample. Only first-time issuances of green bonds have a significant abnormal return of 0,74% in the period after announcement but show no significant results on the announcement date. Green bonds being a credible signal of environmental commitment thus has inconclusive support in our study and equity investors seem largely indifferent to firm’s green bond announcements.

Syftet med rapporten är att undersöka och analysera motiv och ekonomiska incitament bakom fastighetssektorns deltagande på den gröna obligationsmarknaden i Sverige. Rapporten diskuterar huruvida en grön premie eller ett Green bond premium, även kallat Greenium, existerar samt hur stort detta är. Greenium är skillnaden mellan räntan på en grön obligation och en traditionell obligation. Vidare analyseras anledningar till att ett Greenium skulle uppstå. En diskussion förs huruvida det är mer ekonomiskt lönsamt att köpa gröna obligationer i jämförelse med traditionella obligationer. År 2007 utfärdade Världsbanken den första gröna obligationen i världen i samarbete med SEB. Sedan gröna obligationens uppkomst har marknaden vuxit till ett globalt värde på över 300 miljarder dollar. Vasakronan utfärdade världens första gröna företagsobligation 2013, efter det fick marknaden i Sverige sitt största uppsving och sedan dess har marknaden vuxit kraftigt. Gröna obligationer har samma ekonomiska egenskaper som traditionella obligationer men skillnaden är att intäkterna från gröna obligationer måste finansiera miljö- eller klimatvänliga projekt. Gröna obligationer medför en del risker för aktiva aktörer. Dessa risker är bland annat anseenderisk, greenwashing och asymmetrisk information. Med tanke på den enorma påverkan företag idag har på miljön är det lämpligt att dessa tar ansvar för sina utsläpp och andra negativa externa effekter. Genom konceptet Corporate Social Responsibility har företag tagit mer ansvar för hur de påverkar samhället ur såväl ett ekonomiskt, miljömässigt samt socialt perspektiv. Genom CSR har gröna obligationer blivit populärt och i synnerhet på fastighetsmarknaden där ambitionen kring hållbarhet vuxit kraftigt de senare åren. Sammanfattningsvis kan det konstateras att ett greenium finns men att det är svåruppskattat. Enligt intervjuade personer inom fastighetsbranschen kan greenium antas vara -4 till -5 baspunkter och enligt vetenskapliga artiklar antas det vara cirka -2 baspunkter. En baspunkt motsvarar en hundradels procent. Att greenium uppstår beror på investerares stora efterfrågan och emittenters låga utbud på gröna obligationer i dagsläget. Fastighetsbranschen är ledande på den gröna obligationsmarknaden i Sverige och detta antas bero på branschens tidiga modifiering av gröna obligationer samt sektorns välutvecklade certifieringssystem av hållbara byggnader. I framtiden kan den gröna obligationsmarknaden antas växa och utvecklas inom såväl andra branscher som andra länder. / This report aim to examine and analyze motives and financial incentives behind the real estate sector's participation on the green bond market in Sweden. The report discusses whether a Green bond premium, also called Greenium, exists and how large it is. Furthermore, the reasons why a Greenium can occur are analyzed. A discussion about whether it is more economically viable to trade in green bonds compared to ordinary corporate bonds is implemented. In 2007, the World Bank issued the first green bond in the world in cooperation with SEB. Since then the market has grown to a global value over $ 300 billion. Vasakronan issued the world’s first green corporate bond in 2013 and since then the green bond market in Sweden has grown strongly. Green bonds have the same economic traits as traditional bonds, but the difference is that revenues from green bonds must finance environment or climatefriendly projects. Green bonds entail some risks for active issuers and investors. These risks include reputation risk, greenwashing and asymmetric information. Given the enormous impact companies have on the environment, it is appropriate for companies to take responsibility for their emissions and other negative external effects. Through the concept Corporate Social Responsibility companies have taken more responsibility for how they affect society from both an economic, environmental and social perspective. Through CSR green bonds have become popular and especially on the real estate market, where the ambition of sustainability has grown strongly in recent years. In conclusion, it can be stated that a greenium exists but that it is difficult to estimate. According to interviewed issuers in the real estate sector, greenium can be assumed to be -4 to -5 basis points and, according to scientific articles, it is assumed to be about -2 basis points. The fact that greenium arises depends on investors’ large demand and issuers' low supply of green bonds at present time. The real estate industry is the leading sector in the green bond market in Sweden and this is assumed to be due to the industry's early modification of green bonds and the sector's well-developed certification system of sustainable buildings. In the future, the green bond market can be assumed to grow and develop in both other industries and other countrie

In this thesis the existence of the yield premium of green bonds is investigated. This paper complies with the instructions that were used in the analysis run by Zerbib(2018). The results of the fixed-effect panel regression confirm the hyphotesis on which our paper is based on. We found a nagative premium: the yield of the conventional bond is higher than the yield of the green bond. Furthermore, this paper examines how the defintion of the greenness of the bond is specified by various institutions and experts.

Context:Over the years, India has evolved as a leading powerhouse of economic growthbut belongs to the nations that are most significantly affected by anthropogenicenviron-mental changes. As part of the Paris Agreement, India has formulated a national climate agenda, but a large gapprevalentin the green financialmarket as well as other deficien-cies in the general bondmarket and the underlying infrastructure restrain the country from attaining those goals. Purpose:Earlier scholarly works, and green bond reports, in particular, have foreground the number of green bond issuances in India but do not take a critical look at the stagnat-ing development of the market and have not scrutinised the market and its actors in the context of scientific frames of reference yet. Thus, this thesis aims to identify the chal-lenges India faces in scaling the green financial market up while taking the demands and potential contributions of stakeholder groups into consideration. Methodology:This thesis is grounded in the author’s assumptions of interpretivism and subjectivity. Following these initial considerations, an inductive approach was followed, and a qualitative study was conducted, mainly based on a literature review in areas like sustainable finance,green financialmarkets and theirparticipantsas well asgreen debt securities and the associated issuers, investors, costsandverificationmethodsin India. Findings:The main challenges India faces in developing the green financial market fur-ther are the missing transparency provoked by the fragmentary green bond regulation as to disclosure and verification requirements as well as illiquidity caused by a small number of and little environmental awareness among investors. The market relies heavily on the banking sector and green investment projects are slanted towards renewable energy and energy efficiency projects. Moreover, green debt securities lack clear pricing advantages compared to conventional bonds but bear risks for greenwashing activities. Research Limitations:This thesis was not able to bridge the research gap on challenges for scaling India’s sustainable financial market up. The examination was further initiated by the author’s experiences with the topicand is based on an interpretive approach, thus, argumentations and findingsmight be value-laden. The small sample size of interviews taken and the limited information on greenwashing within financial activities might have not deliveredfull insightsinto the research topic

This thesis examined the effect of non-financial motives, namely pro-environmental or sustainability preference, in bond pricing on the European secondary market before and during the COVID-19 crisis over the period 02.01.2019-26.02.2021. To estimate the potential yield spread between green bonds and matched conventional bonds, we applied a stringent matching method and fixed-effect regression to explore the green bond premium. The result indicated a small positive premium of 0.46 bps before the COVID-19 (01.2019-02.2020) and a small negative premium of 0.2 bps during the ongoing COVID-19 crisis (03.2020-02.2021), and the premiums have significantly changed between the two study periods, implying that the COVID-19 had a significant effect on the GB premium. Thus, before the pandemic, investors demanded compensation in the form of a higher yield return on investing in green bonds; however, during the pandemic, investors are willing to accept a lower yield on the GBs in comparison to the equivalent CB to finance environmentally-friendly projects. Additionally, the paper investigated bond volatility by analyzing the standard deviation of the daily yield. Although green bonds tended to have a higher volatility, no robust conclusion could be drawn due to a lack of statistical significance.

This paper analyzes the difference in yield to maturity between two types of ESG-fixed income instruments, and aims to answer the research question "Is there a yield difference between sustainable-linked bonds and green bonds issued in Europe?". The sample consists of a total of 1499 bonds, issued between the time period 2019-2023, where the databases Bloomberg and Refinitive Eikon have been used to collect and filter the data. The null hypothesis is that there is no significant difference between the two bond types, the alternative hypothesis states that one of them has a premium towards the other. For the methodology, the sustainability-linked bonds (SLBs) are matched with green bonds, creating pairs based on similar characteristics. This procedure, which corresponds to previous work by Kölbel & Lambillon (2022), alongside an OLS regression, are used to answer the research question. The results show that there is no significant yield difference between the bond types. This conclusion is drawn from using a Wilcoxon test on the paired bond sample. The result from the regression implies that the yield on green bonds is explained by the defined independent variables to a greater extent than the yield on SLBs. There are amble number of prior studies which have found a present premium on the ESG instruments green bonds (Fatica et al., 2019; Baker et al., 2018; MacAskill et al. 2021; Kapraun, 2021; Löffler et al., 2021; and Zerbib, 2018) and SLBs (Kölbel & Lambillon, 2022; Feldhütter et al., 2023). This essay aspires to use previous research findings as reference for comparing bond types against each other rather than their performance against conventional bonds. Additionally, the SLB instrument is still considered relatively novel and hence this essay aims to contribute to existing knowledge with new inputs and findings.

Yes / This study contributes to the existing literature on the relationship between oil market shocks and the green bond market by investigating the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their dynamic correlation. We first decompose the oil market shocks into components using a time-frequency framework. Then, we combine wavelet decomposition and quantile coherence and causality methods to discuss changes during the COVID-19 era. We observe positive effects of both supply-driven and demand-driven oil shocks on the green bond market at most quantile levels. However, supply-driven oil price changes play a major role. The results also indicate that long-term changes have a greater impact than short-term changes on the connection between oil and green bond markets. Nevertheless, the COVID-19 pandemic changed the nature of the causal relationship, as we observed no relationship under extreme market conditions during the pandemic era. We argue that the economic and social impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have left investors focusing on the short-term substitution between oil and green bond markets. / This research was supported by the Major Projects of the National Natural Science Fund of China [NO. 71991483], the Natural Science Fund of Hunan Province [NO. 2022JJ40647] and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of Central South University [NO. 2022ZZTS0353]. / The full-text of this article will be released for public view at the end of the publisher embargo on 06 Oct 2024.

The green bond market offers investors the opportunity to take an explicit focus on sustainable investment projects. However, it is yet to be determined whether this novel asset class offers attractive yields compared to non-green bonds. To address this question, we study European green bonds and how they diverge from conventional bonds in terms of yields. Using a dataset of 88 matched pairs of European green bonds between 2015 and 2019, we document a significant negative green bond premium of -12 bps on average in the secondary market. The green bond premium is defined as the yield differential between a green and a conventional bond while controlling for liquidity. The results suggest that European investors accept a lower financial return in exchange for receiving non-pecuniary benefits and thus challenging the assumptions of classical asset pricing models. Furthermore, we use a matching method and two-step regression to control for liquidity and identify the determinants of the green bond premium. The results show that the negative green bond premium is less pronounced for lower-rated bonds. Moreover, we find support for variations in the green bond premium across different business sectors. Government-related green bonds experience a greater negative green bond premium than green bonds related to financials and industrial corporates.