The Climate Bonds Initiative (CBI) has released a full-length report on Sustainability-Linked Bonds (SLBs), which assesses the profile, structural features, KPI performance, and transition plans of SLB issuance, and makes recommendations aimed at growing a credible SLB market.

The SLB market, with a cumulative issuance summing up 279 billion dollars, is relatively young (first SLB was issued in December 2018) and characterised by a growing and increasingly diversified pool of issuers.

The authors found that the sustainability credentials of many SLBs have been weak and require improvement and therefore introduces a best practice checklist for high-quality SLB issuance, including the following key elements: i) overall disclosure; ii) GHG targets and alignment with SLB Database Methodology; iii) target and trigger dates; iv) KPI selection; v) multiple KPIs/targets; vi) call options and legal clauses; vii) post-issuance SLB reporting; viii) transition plan and link with SLBs; ix) assurance.