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In 2023, the country that issued the highest value of sustainable bonds - either from the government or organizations domiciled in that country - was the United States, with almost 100 billion U.S. dollars of fixed income debt issued. China was second, with nearly ** billion U.S. dollars, then Germany with ** billion U.S. dollars. However, it should be noted that the balance between debt for environmental and social purposes was very different between these countries, with the majority of debt issued by France being for social purposes. If just considering the value of green bonds issued (i.e. bonds issued for environmental projects), the highest issuer in 2023 was China.

The European sustainable bond market

Overall, Europe is the clear leader in the sustainable bond market, having issued more sustainable bonds than any other region since 2014 (including supranational organizations). Given the sustainable bonds issued over this period were for environmental causes, the European green bond market is highly advanced.

Types of sustainable bonds

While green bonds are the most common type of sustainable bond, there are also social bonds which raise money for social (rather than environmental) causes. In addition, there is the broader category of sustainable bonds, which are for a combination of both social and environmental causes. The category of what is a social cause is somewhat broad, however, generating some controversy. For example while China does issue a high number of green bonds, they issued a far higher value of social bonds in 2020. Much of this debt was labelled as for dealing with the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, which meant it could be classified as social bonds. This is controversial, as in many other countries debt raised for this purpose may not have been not categorized as sustainable. Some have also raised questions about whether such bonds can even be considered sustainable in the first place, given some certifications only required ** percent of the money raised to be used for causes directly related to the fight against COVID-19 (such as manufacturing medical devices, building hospitals, or scientific research).