Publication: EU Green Bond Regulation

On 30 November 2023, Regulation (EU) 2023/2631 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 November 2023 on European Green Bonds and optional disclosures for bonds marketed as environmentally sustainable and for sustainability-linked bonds (EU Green Bond Regulation) was published in the Official Journal of the EU. The EU Green Bond Regulation will thus enter into force on 20 December 2023. However, issuers will not be able to apply the regulation until 21 December 2024.

The aim of the regulation is to make green bonds more transparent and comparable based on their environmental objectives in order to reduce the risk of greenwashing. Different standards and market practices within the European Union will now be harmonised. At the same time, the proceeds of such a bond should only be able to be invested in taxonomy-aligned economic activities. This regulation thus also ties in with the implementation of the European Union's Sustainable Finance Action Plan and now follows the Taxonomy Regulation and the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD).

Issuers must fulfil the requirements of the EU Green Bond Regulation in order to use the designation "EU Green Bonds" or EuGB. An EU Green Bond can be either a listed or unlisted bond. In addition, a centralised registration system supervised by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) and a supervisory framework for external reviewers will be introduced. The regulation also provides optional disclosures templates for bonds marketed as environmentally sustainable and for sustainability-linked bonds.

The EU Green Bond Regulation can be found here.