GREEN BONDS AS AN INSTRUMENT FOR FINANCING RENEWABLE ENERGY PROJECTS

Abstract

The paper analyses green bonds as sources of financing renewable energy projects. Green bonds are a relatively new form of financing and thanks to increased investors’ climate awareness, the market has seen an enormous growth in the last few years. Therefore, the guidelines and standards adopted in financial markets clearly indicate what should be considered a green investment and are a key to further development of the market and achieving the goals of green financing. The goal of the theoretical approach to green bond market in the paper is to identify the key barriers that prevent many countries from taking advantage of this new but growing source of financing renewable energy. The lack of appropriate institutional arrangements for managing green bonds, issuing a minimum volume and high transaction costs are the key obstacles to the development of green bond market. The overall conclusion of the paper is that with just the right measures, many countries could make full use of green bonds to finance climate change adaptation and mitigation projects and thus increase renewable energy capacities.