Post-issuance reporting in the green bond market 2021

This report by the Climate Bonds Initiative analyzes post-issuance reporting practices for 694 green bonds (USD 212bn) issued between November 2017 and March 2019. It finds that while use-of-proceeds (UoP) reporting is widespread, impact reporting is less common and highly unstandardized. The study evaluates reporting quality through a scoring system, identifies best practices, and advocates for a global, harmonized reporting framework to move beyond binary labels toward absolute, entity-level sustainability assessments.

• Post-issuance reporting is common, but use-of-proceeds (UoP) disclosure is more frequent than impact reporting. Specifically, 77% of issuers (representing 88% of the amount issued) provided UoP reporting, while 59% of issuers (74% of the amount issued) reported on impacts.
• Reporting availability is positively correlated with deal size and the presence of external reviews. Bonds with no review are significantly less likely to have post-issuance reporting (34% by amount issued), whereas 99% of the amount issued for deals with both pre- and post-issuance reviews had reporting.
• Reporting quality varies by region, with European issuers demonstrating the most consistency, scoring between 10 and 25 points. Africa had the highest mean score among reporting issuers, though this was based on a small sample of three issuers.
• Impact reporting is highly unstandardized, making comparability and aggregation difficult for investors. A primary cause is the frequent use of relative metrics, such as GHG emissions saved, which depend on varying baselines.
• There is a prevalence of relative metrics over absolute metrics in impact reporting. For GHG/CO2, approximately ten times more issuers report savings or avoided emissions than absolute emissions or intensity.
• The report identifies a 'reporting lag' for bonds issued in the first quarter of a year, as repeat issuers reporting at a programme level often aggregate data in annual cycles. This caused a drop in reporting share to 71% for bonds issued in Q1 2019.
• Most issuers deliver on their reporting commitments made at issuance, with 70% of issuers (77% of amount issued) reporting as promised. Smaller issuers are more likely to over-promise than larger ones.
• The ICMA Harmonized Framework and the Nordic Public Sector Issuers (NPSI) Position Paper are the two most comprehensive and widely adopted impact reporting methodologies, though they still only cover a minority of the market.
• The report argues that current use-of-proceeds (UoP) reporting is insufficient because it focuses on isolated projects, ignoring the broader environmental and social impacts of the entity's overall activities.
• The authors advocate for a paradigm shift toward a common, global reporting framework and platform that uses absolute metrics and spectrum-based assessments rather than binary 'green' labels.

APA

Almeida, M., & Lonikar, P. (2021). Post-issuance reporting in the green bond market 2021. Climate Bonds Initiative. https://www.climatebonds.net/files/documents/publications/Post-Issuance-Reporting-in-the-Green-Bond-Market-2021.pdf

Chicago

Almeida, Miguel, and Prashant Lonikar. Post-issuance reporting in the green bond market 2021. Climate Bonds Initiative, 2021. https://www.climatebonds.net/files/documents/publications/Post-Issuance-Reporting-in-the-Green-Bond-Market-2021.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Almeida |first1=Miguel |last2=Lonikar |first2=Prashant |title=Post-issuance reporting in the green bond market 2021 |publisher=Climate Bonds Initiative |date=May 2021 |url=https://www.climatebonds.net/files/documents/publications/Post-Issuance-Reporting-in-the-Green-Bond-Market-2021.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{almeida2021postissuance, author = {Almeida, Miguel and Lonikar, Prashant}, title = {{Post-issuance reporting in the green bond market 2021}}, institution = {Climate Bonds Initiative}, year = {2021}, month = may, url = {https://www.climatebonds.net/files/documents/publications/Post-Issuance-Reporting-in-the-Green-Bond-Market-2021.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }