Issuance of green, social, sustainable and sustainability-linked bonds and loans is down by 28% year-on-year, according to data from Dealogic. From the start of the year to February 17, total supply reached $125bn, down from $174bn over the same period in 2021.
Sustainability-linked loan and social bond volumes have been particularly lower at the start of the year compared with 2021, down from $35bn to $14bn and from $49bn to $21bn, respectively.
Sustainable bonds and green loans are also down year-on-year from $33bn to $26bn and from $3.9bn to $317m, respectively. However, green bonds and sustainability-linked bonds (SLBs) are up year-on-year from $48bn to $50bn and from $5.4bn to $14bn, respectively.
JPMorgan tops Dealogic’s global sustainable finance league table at the start of 2022 with revenue of $30.1m from 61 deals, followed by Bank of America with $28.7m of revenue from 48 deals and Deutsche Bank with $27.1m from 36 deals.
Despite the slow start to the year compared with 2021, S&P Global Ratings expects global issuance of sustainable bonds to surpass $1.5tn in 2022 to set an annual record of deal volume, even as global conventional bond issuance stagnates amid tighter monetary policy. This will increase the share of sustainable bonds from the overall global bond volume in 2022 to 17% compared with 11% in 2021.
S&P expects the rise in sustainable bond issuance to be driven by strong volumes of SLBs and a record supply of green bonds.
