Nasdaq Launches Sustainable Bond Investor Portal
The Nasdaq Sustainable Bond network, a global platform aiming to increase transparency for environmental, social, and sustainability goals, has launched a new Investor Portal, designed to assist investors make well-informed ESG decisions.
The new platform will allow investors to “generate impact reports, run allocation reports and find new sustainable investments.’’ Investors also have access to more than 6,500 bonds from 600 issuers from 51 countries.
Lee Beng Hong, senior managing director and head of Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities at the Singapore Exchange, said:
“Improving transparency and information access to ESG bond data are crucial for sustainability investment decisions. As the largest international bonds platform in Asia, Singapore Exchange is connecting the Asia Pacific region to the Nasdaq Sustainable Bond Network to provide global coverage of ESG bonds in the network – to promote trust and transparency necessary for the marketplace to work towards a sustainable future.”
The market for sustainable debt has been experiencing significant growth over the last few years. According to a recent report by credit ratings, research, and risk analysis provider Moody’s Investors Service, global sustainable bond issuance reached a record $231 billion in Q1 2021, more than triple the same quarter last year. Moody’s expects the sustainable bond market to surpass $650 billion this year, ahead of last year’s record of $491 billion.
The Nasdaq Sustainable Bond network follows a similar path to the Luxembourg Green Exchange (LGX), a platform dedicated to sustainable securities. Earlier this year, LGX in cooperation with the Climate Bonds initiative, announced the introduction of a new section on its platform, designed to help climate-aligned Issuers and their debt securities.
According to LGX, the new platform identifies Climate-Aligned Issuers with outstanding debt, whose proceeds can be used to finance their operational activities within climate-friendly sectors such as clean energy, low carbon transport, and sustainable land use.
Ann-Charlotte Eliasson, head of Sustainable Bond Network at Nasdaq, said:
“Over the last year and a half we, together with issuers and close partners such as SGX, the Singapore Exchange, have seen the Nasdaq Sustainable Bond Network evolve into one of the world’s leading platforms for sustainable bond transparency. With the addition of the Investor Portal, we are taking a large step to further to support investors looking to make intelligent and well-founded sustainable investment decisions, by providing with an easy to access, compare and analyze sustainable bond data on 6,500+ global sustainable bonds.’’