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EU watchdog releases green bonds from fund naming guidelines

Green bond funds in the European Union are complimentary to continue purchasing bonds offered by huge polluters such as power and energy business, after the securities guard dog introduced allowances to its brand-new fund naming standards.

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) on Friday clarified fund managers might continue to hold green or other use of earnings bonds that fulfill particular sustainability exemption criteria without altering their fund names or divesting properties.

The watchdog in October triggered an industry reaction with brand-new rules that investors warned would make it harder for utilities and power business to raise money to decarbonise, particularly through green bonds.

The rules, which used to brand-new funds from November, set out how funds using words including green, ecological or impact might identify themselves as sustainable. The rules bar funds from buying oil, coal and companies deriving more than 50% of their revenue from gas, in addition to the most polluting electricity companies.

Fund supervisors need to alter their fund names or sell properties that breach the requirements, a process that has started.

Nevertheless, ESMA has left out green bonds provided under its Green Bond Standard, due to be released on Dec. 21, from its fund identifying guidelines, it said in its explanation. It also introduced an arrangement to allow investors to hold green or other use-of-proceeds bonds utilized to fund eco-friendly or other green jobs sold by companies in carbon-intensive sectors which themselves fall short of the more comprehensive exclusion requirements.

This 'look-through' provision does not use nevertheless to companies which fail to meet UN Global Compact concepts or OECD standards for multinational business, the guard dog said.

Agnes Gourc, BNP Paribas' head of sustainable capital markets, said the update gotten rid of significant unpredictability ahead of a typically hectic time for bond debtors.

In Q1 we would have seen some issuers hold back on green bond issuance till they had more clarity, she stated. The. timing is great.

Energy and power business represented a fifth of the worldwide. green bond market and had issued more than $70 billion-worth of. debt by September this year, according to LSEG information.

(source: Reuters)