Shades of green
Life cycle assessment of renewable energy projects financed through green bonds
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 15548741 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Thomas Gibon (0000-0002-2778-8825, Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology, corresponding author), I Popescu (0000-0002-6965-6521, Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology), Claudia Hitaj (0000-0002-6408-9265, Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology), Claudio Petucco (0000-0002-2377-7678, Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology), Enrico Benetto (0000-0003-1159-9162, Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 15 |
| Issue | 10 |
| Pages | 104045-104045 |
| Publication date | 2020-07-28 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Environmental Research Letters (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1748-9326 • E-ISSN: 1748-9326 |
| Publisher | IOP Publishing (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1088/1748-9326/abaa0c |
| OpenAlex | W3045632618 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 10 |
| References cited | 18 |
Green bonds have emerged as a key instrument to fund projects contributing to climate change mitigation or environmental protection. However, a consistent, robust and comparable standard for the estimation of the environmental impacts of green bonds is lacking, hampering growth in sustainable finance. As encouraged by second-party opinion reports, the use of life cycle assessment (LCA) allows for the complete environmental evaluation of projects over their life cycle. Here we estimate the LCA-based impacts along several environmental metrics of a set of green bonds for renewable power plants issued by the European Investment Bank from 2015–2018. Life cycle avoided greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions varied by a factor of 12 from 29 to 359 t CO 2 eq./M€ invested—information that is not available to investors at the outset, indicating that funds are unlikely to be allocated efficiently. Furthermore, linking environmental impact indicators to the Sustainable Development Goals unveils significant trade-offs. Bonds may perform well on water use and emissions, while having a negative impact on waste and land use. Conducting LCA of green bonds comes at a cost of additional methodological challenges and increased data needs compared with current reporting practices. However, the ready infrastructure of LCA databases and methodologies can provide the necessary tools to meet future reporting requirements as the EU taxonomy framework and standardization of impact reporting evolve
Bond · Business · Economics · Environmental economics · Environmental impact assessment · Environmental planning · Environmental resource management · Greenhouse gas · Investment (military · Life-cycle assessment · Natural resource economics · Production (economics · Renewable energy · Standardization · Sustainability · Sustainable development · Climate Change Policy and Economics · Computer Science · Energy, Environment, Economic Growth · Engineering · Environmental Science · Sustainable Finance and Green Bonds · Finance
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To label or not? A choice experiment testing whether labelled green bonds matter to retail investors
Sustainable futures
Navigating the Impact, Challenges and Future Prospects of Carbon Neutrality Under Green Finance Initiatives
Asymmetric impact of green bonds on energy efficiency
Are SRI funds financing carbon emissions? An input-output life cycle assessment of investment funds
Financing climate-resilient infrastructure through long-term green bond
On the validity of corporate green bonds’ environmental claims
A step toward sustainable development
The European Union (EU) green taxonomy
| Unique citing works | 10 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2.5 |
| Citation span | 2022 - 2025 (4) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 10 |