The Creation and Benchmarking of a Green Municipal Bond Index

Abstract

As the green bond market grows, many are wondering if there is a pricing difference between green bonds and conventional bonds. In order to explore these ideas, we created bond indices specific to the green-labelled and climate-aligned municipal bond market, primarily to test the competitiveness of the green sector of the muni bond market against the overall muni bond market. We used the S&P municipal bond index construction methodology in order to compare like with like, and benchmarked the green and climate indices against their counterpart S&P municipal indices. We find that the green and climate muni indices showed CAGRs of 4.5% from 2014 to 2017, compared with 3% for the S&P Investment Grade Municipal index. We also created several sector and state sub-indices, which also outperformed their S&P counterparts.

Keywords: Green Bonds, Municipal Bonds, Infrastructure, Sustainability, ESG, SRI, Investment

JEL Classification: R51, G12, O18, Q56