When Environmental Finance's small-but-dedicated team of green bond aficionados totted up all the green bond issues from the first quarter of 2015, the numbers were a little disappointing.
However, our verdict was that the glass was half full rather than half empty, as there were plenty of issues in the pipeline.
The past three months have not disappointed. The market has seen a healthy $11.8 billion of issues in the second quarter, up from $8.7 billion in the first quarter.
That compares with some $37 billion for the whole of 2014, and means we are on track for healthy growth, even if it looks unlikely that the market can pull off its trick of trebling annually, as it has for the previous two years.
Market participants told Environmental Finance's packed green bond conference last week that there is plenty more action to come in the third quarter.
The fact that our conference attracted some 230 delegates was itself testament to the continued growth of this exciting asset class, and we are now excited about our next event, in New York on 7 October.
A few developments have given particular cause for cheer in recent weeks.
We have opined before that it would be good to see more banks issuing green bonds as well as underwriting them. Several banks have come to market in recent months, including ABN Amro, Morgan Stanley, Yes Bank, ANZ, National Australia Bank, and Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAML) with a repeat issue. Credit Agricole has also continued its series of private placements.
According to BAML's recent research note, if you count private banks alongside corporates, this means corporate issues have outweighed SSA issues by value so far in 2015. (The report was published on 18 June.)
That is a significant step for the market because there have been fewer corporate issues than I would like to have seen in recent months, particularly in the US, where municipalities (typically without second opinions) have dominated the market.
So, an issue from data centre REIT Digital Realty and a repeat issue from Toyota were encouraging.
Another theme that rang out loud and clear from our conference was that emerging markets have the potential to take the market's growth to another level.
India saw issues from its export-import bank and Yes Bank. More are expected. As well as broadening the universe of issues, these will also help inject some welcome high yield bonds into the market (see infographic below).
China holds even more promise. If emerging markets can come to the party in a big way, as many at our conference anticipate, the green bond market cup won't just be half full – it will be running over.
See our latest figures here.
