Выпуск зеленых облигаций как способ создания долгосрочной ценности для компаний

In the last couple of years, researchers have been increasingly challenging the idea that implementation of sustainability practices comes with a substantial cost for most of the organizations. Even though the world of business has been experiencing new governmental restrictions as well as policy changes, the common opinion still remains so that environmental, social and governmental (ESG) practices do not intercept with financial ones.
Still, more and more companies are increasing their awareness in regards to sustainability issues, resulting in the emergence of new financial mechanisms and instruments. One of the recent ones is the issuance of green bonds, which proceeds are aimed solely towards the financing of sustainability-related projects within the company. Green bonds have started to gain their popularity around seven years ago, with the issued amount outstanding increasing rapidly over the years.
The fact of green bonds emergence, however, does not act as a linking mechanism for sustainability and corporate finance. In general, most practitioners have been concerned with the reasons for green bond issuance and the role they play in the financial performance of a certain company. Intuitively, it seems questionable that a company would restrict its investment policy by issuing a green bond. Moreover, in order to label a bond “green”, most companies have to undergo an additional assessment, which results in increased costs for issuance. Nevertheless, said bonds are still being issued, with the amount outstanding increasing with each year, adding more questions to the mix.
The aim of the current research is the evaluation of the effect that green bonds issuance has on a company’s long-term performance, mainly through continuous assessment of price to book value before and after the fact of issuance. Hypothesis to be tested in this research is that the issuance of green bonds has an effect on a company’s long-term value creation.
Research objectives are the following:
1. To provide a full description of green bonds and long-term value creation and their peculiarities through a thorough literature analysis;
2. To analyze the relationship between green bond investment and long-term value creation;
3. To compile the green bond dataset that includes time-series price to book ratios in the last 10 years;
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4. To divide the dataset according to the sector for the most reasonable results;
5. To perform a difference in difference estimation in order to find out whether there
is a measurable effect that issuance has on a company’s long-term performance;
6. To propose managerial implications after the analysis.
The results of the current research can be used in decision-making process both by financial specialists and executives in a company during strategy making. That way, before approval of issuance of the new kind of debt, managers can take into account the implications made from the analysis in order to understand its approximate effect on a company’s performance.
The structure of the paper is designed so as to disclose both the aim and above-mentioned objectives. In the first chapter, previous theoretical considerations and the emergence of the green bonds phenomenon are discussed. The analysis of various scholar’s work is presented. Then, a link to long-term value creation is provided.
In the second chapter, theoretical findings are extrapolated onto the empirical research. First, difference in difference estimation methodology and its characteristics are discussed. Then, a detailed description of data gathering for the sample is provided. To conclude, the research findings are presented along with managerial implications and justification.