Purpose

As investors' expectations shift toward corporate sustainability, many corporations have jumped on the bandwagon of being “green” by issuing green bonds. However, as a recent green financing tool, little attention has been paid on the value that green bonds actually deliver. This causes the problem of greenwashing, in which firms pretend to be environmentally responsible when in reality they are not. This study therefore aims to explore green bonds' impact on issuers' corporate environmental and financial performance.

Design/methodology/approach

The sample is collected from among the green bond and conventional bond issues between 2015 and 2019 issued by corporations from various countries. Using the propensity score matching (PSM) and then difference-in-difference (DiD) approaches, two sub-groups (green bond and conventional bond issuers) were generated for comparison. Changes in environmental and financial performance over time between the sub-groups are then examined.

Findings

The overall results show that green bonds are effective in improving environmental performance, but only when they are certified by third parties. Additionally, green bonds do not have an impact on financial performance. The findings imply that green bonds' dependency on external certification may be a consequence of an underdeveloped green bond market, where weak governance still dominates the green bond market. Because of this, corporations tend to take advantage of green finance's growing popularity, causing the greenwashing problem.

Originality/value

Green bonds are an extremely new area of research. Few research studies focus on the effectiveness of green bonds in impacting corporate financial and environmental performance. Therefore, this study strives to fill this research gap. It sheds light on the effectiveness of green bonds in supporting the development of green projects and provides a reference point for decision-making in strengthening transparency and accountability in environmental disclosure and helps regulating authorities develop tighter regulatory controls.

中文翻译：

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绿色债券对企业环境和财务绩效的影响

目的

随着投资者的期望转向企业可持续发展，许多企业已经通过发行绿色债券赶上了“绿色”的潮流。然而，作为近来的绿色融资工具，绿色债券的实际价值却鲜为人知。这导致了漂绿问题，即企业假装对环境负责，但实际上并非如此。因此，本研究旨在探讨绿色债券对发行人企业环境和财务业绩的影响。

设计/方法/方法

样本是从 2015 年至 2019 年各国公司发行的绿色债券和常规债券中收集的。使用倾向得分匹配 (PSM) 和差值差 (DiD) 方法，生成了两个子组（绿色债券和传统债券发行人）进行比较。然后检查子组之间的环境和财务绩效随时间的变化。

发现

总体结果表明，绿色债券在改善环境绩效方面是有效的，但前提是它们获得了第三方认证。此外，绿色债券对财务业绩没有影响。调查结果表明，绿色债券对外部认证的依赖可能是绿色债券市场不发达的结果，其中治理薄弱仍然主导着绿色债券市场。正因为如此，企业往往会利用绿色金融的日益普及，从而引发“漂绿”问题。

原创性/价值

绿色债券是一个非常新的研究领域。很少有研究关注绿色债券在影响企业财务和环境绩效方面的有效性。因此，本研究力求填补这一研究空白。它阐明了绿色债券在支持绿色项目发展方面的有效性，并为加强环境披露透明度和问责制的决策提供了参考点，并帮助监管机构制定更严格的监管控制。