Green and ESG-labelled debt, green deposits, carbon in banking, and who pays for the transition.
Green bonds and sustainability-linked bonds both carry a sustainability label, but they work in opposite ways. One controls where the money goes. The other controls what the issuer must achieve.
The EU's sustainability rules reach Indian companies through EU subsidiaries, EU customers and EU investors. The CSRD after the 2026 Omnibus cuts, the simplified ESRS, the EU Taxonomy and the proposed SFDR overhaul.
For banks and NBFCs, climate risk sits mainly in the loan book. RBI's path from its 2022 discussion paper to the 2024 draft disclosure framework and the 2025 climate finance Directions, and what analysts can use today.
Green, social, sustainability, sustainability-linked and transition bonds and loans on one map. The two basic designs, the standard behind each label, the size of the market worldwide and in India, and the checks that apply to every label.
A green bond is a normal bond whose money must go to defined green projects. ICMA's principles, SEBI's rules, India's sovereign green bonds and the greenium.
Social bonds fund projects that help defined groups of people. Sustainability bonds fund a mix of green and social projects. ICMA's principles, the six project categories, target populations, SEBI's 2025 rules and how to test social impact claims.
Sustainability-linked bonds can fund anything, but their terms change if the issuer misses its sustainability targets. KPIs, targets, coupon step-ups, SEBI's 2025 framework, and the questions to ask.
Money that helps high-emitting companies cut their emissions, rather than funding activities that are already green. Transition bonds, SEBI's rules, ICMA's 2025 guidelines, Japan's sovereign transition bonds, India's draft taxonomy, and the tests of a credible transition plan.
One map of SEBI's rules for labelled debt: green debt securities and their blue, yellow and transition sub-categories, the greenwashing do's and don'ts, the 2025 framework for social, sustainability and sustainability-linked bonds, and the 2026 rules for independent reviewers.
The Government of India's green bonds: the 2022 framework, the nine eligible categories, what the money has funded, the auction record from 2023 to 2026, the shift to 30-year bonds, foreign access through GIFT City, and the greenium.
The greenium is the small yield discount that investors may accept on a green bond. The ways to measure it, the forces that drive it, the evidence from India's sovereign and municipal green bonds, and its real effect on a company's cost of capital.
RBI's rules for green deposits: what banks can and cannot promise depositors, where the money may go, the excluded activities, third-party verification and impact reports, and how to read a bank's green deposit disclosures.
How floods, heatwaves and carbon policy reach a lender's balance sheet. Financed emissions and the PCAF standard, RBI's 2022 pilot climate stress test, global rules for banks, and a checklist for analysing an Indian lender.
A taxonomy is an official rulebook of which activities count as green or as transition. The EU model, India's May 2025 draft (its categories, eight principles and first sectors), where it stands in 2026, and the interim lists that banks and bond issuers use in the meantime.
Blended finance uses public or philanthropic money to take extra risk so that private investors will fund projects they would otherwise avoid. The main tools, the size of the market, India's viability gap funding schemes, and the questions to ask about a blended deal.
For lenders, the big ESG issues sit in the loan book and in customer data: climate credit risk and financed emissions, data privacy and cyber risk, fair lending and governance. The issues, the data and the RBI and DPDP rules to know.
