Luxembourg Stock Exchange (LuxSE) and its Luxembourg Green Exchange (LGX) have prioritised sustainability-themed education, improvements in data and promoting gender-themed bonds in recent months.

LGX claims to provide the world's leading platform for sustainable securities, with more than 1,400 green, social, sustainability and sustainability-linked bonds from 240 issuers in 50 countries, raising a total of €736 billion ($775 billion) for sustainable development.

In 2021, 560 new labelled bonds were added to LGX – a 47% increase, it said.

It launched a "revamped" fund window to better align with the structure of the EU's Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation. This reflects two fund categories: SFDR Article 8 funds, which promote sustainability objectives, and another for what LGX calls 'impact funds', which features SFDR Article 9 funds which have sustainable investment as their objective.

In 2021, as issuance of sustainability-linked bonds soared, LGX's DataHub database was expanded to include all listed sustainability-linked bonds.

The exchange has also expanded its LGX Academy, which in 2021 provided about 140 hours of training to groups of participants from banks, financial companies, law firms, issuers and professional services firms from countries including Luxembourg, Vietnam, Cabo Verde and Rwanda.

LuxSE meanwhile signed a Memorandum of Understanding with UN Women to advance gender equality and women's empowerment. It overhauled its platform so investors can use LGX to identify bonds the proceeds of which are allocated to promote gender equality objectives.

Julie Becker, CEO of LuxSE, told Environmental Finance: "We believe that gender lens investing is a megatrend that will grow in importance as investors become more precise when it comes to the kind of social impact they would like to support."