CUSIP Global Services (CGS) today announced an alliance with the Climate Bonds Initiative (Climate Bonds), an international organization working to mobilize global capital for climate action, to add green bond data attributes for corporate and municipal bonds in its global data feed and desktop products. The new green bond tags will enable fixed income market participants to instantly identify and categorize securities that contain specific environmentally sustainable growth attributes, based on Climate Bonds' internationally recognized taxonomy for evaluating green finance principles and establishing green bond standards.
The CUSIP is a nine-character alphanumeric security identifier that captures the unique attributes of issuers and their financial instruments throughout the U.S. and Canada. In the U.S. bond market, the CUSIP is used by investors to uniquely identify and track securities and link them with the underlying issuing entity. With this enhancement of its data feed and desktop products, CGS will append a text-based descriptor to the standard CUSIP ID for green bonds. The new attributes, which include more granular use of proceeds information and non-alignment details, cover municipal and corporate debt issued globally and are provided at no additional cost to CGS customers.
“Green, social and sustainability-linked bond issuance accounted for roughly $1 trillion in bond issuance last year, as corporate and municipal issuers increasingly focus on this market segment,” said Scott Preiss, Senior Vice President and Global Head, CUSIP Global Services. “By providing green bond tags as part of our data feed and desktop products, we are making it possible for market participants to quickly and reliably identify securities that meet key sustainable finance criteria using Climate Bonds' proven evaluation standard.”
The collaboration builds on CGS’ 2021 addition of environmental, social and governance (ESG) data attributes for corporate and municipal bonds in its data feed and desktop products. In addition to collaborating on the inclusion of green bond data attributes, CGS and Climate Bonds will also share data and insights for research-driven initiatives, such as the monthly CUSIP Issuance Trends report, which tracks the issuance of new security identifiers as an early indicator of debt and capital markets activity over the next quarter, and other joint research projects.
"CUSIP Global Services delivers critical data tools for the $130 trillion bond market. We are excited to work closely with them to improve standards and transparency in green finance." Sean Kidney, CEO, Climate Bonds Initiative.