Bringing transparency and granularity to sustainable debt data
Environmental Finance Data (EF Data) offers granular sustainable debt data via its online data platform and API feed. Head of product strategy Ben Smith discusses how the database has developed to more accurately capture the growing sustainable debt market
Environmental Finance: The sustainable debt market continues to evolve. How is EF Data reflecting the market?
Ben Smith: EF Data has been tracking the sustainable debt market since its inception, and we have evolved our database in line with the market.
We aim to make sustainable debt data as accessible as possible, with almost 40 interactive data points covering labelled bonds and loans. Our platform and dataset are designed for instant macro and micro market mapping with different interactive filters and lenses, including country, label, currency, issuer type, sector, use of proceeds, SDG, post-issuance allocation.
The market itself is developing, we are tracking an increase in the issuance of sub-labelled sustainable debt, such as blue bonds and loans, dual-labelled bonds with use of proceeds (UoP), and sustainability-linked tranches, and we are keeping a close eye on advances of sustainability-linked loan bond (SLLB) issuance. We have added several new bond sub-labels and asset classes to our interactive dataset in the past six months.
Despite challenges, the market seems to be moving positively towards increasing alignment with the EU Green Bond Standard (EU GBS), which we are tracking through our standards data point. Controversies and greenwashing fears continue in the market and appear to be depressing the issuance of sustainability-linked bonds much more heavily than sustainability-linked loans. We continue to provide market-leading sustainability-linked instrument data with granular data on KPIs, KPI check dates, and step-up and step-down data.
We have added an “issuer transparency” data box to our instrument and organisation listings, which provides users with a snapshot of the availability of corroborating documentation (framework, SPO, impact report, and SBTi-aligned targets) to help allay fears of greenwashing. We also have news stories from our expert journalists outlining any potential controversies surrounding an instrument or organisation.
EF: How do you ensure you are accurately covering the sustainable debt market?
BS: We have a growing team of analysts who manually source, assess, and input the data into our database. This gives us complete confidence in our data validity.
We work hard to achieve universal market coverage on sustainable bonds, and we reconcile our dataset with more than 30 lead managers on a quarterly basis to ensure we don’t miss any deals.
Whilst sustainable loan data presents more challenges, we are seeing progress in the data lenders are willing to share with us and the granularity of the data available from borrowers. We are now reconciling our loan data with 20 different lenders on a quarterly basis, allowing us to provide a more complete picture of the sustainable loan market.
EF: What sets EF Data apart from other data providers?
BS: EF Data prides itself on market coverage and data granularity. As we cover both bonds and loans on our database, it is interesting to track how these distinct but interrelated debt securities are evolving in tandem and separately. Our organisation overviews show the
full sustainable debt picture for organisations with their activity as issuers, borrowers, lead managers, and lenders in the same place.
We also offer additional context and added value to the data. Our resource library has over 28,000 documents available to access and download, including frameworks, SPOs, and impact reports.
Our subscribers also have access to Environmental Finance’s sustainable debt news, with daily articles, editorials, and news stories available through our news tab. As well as in-depth reports and webinars from the EF Data team.
We have recently enhanced our analysis pages, with 10 interactive snapshot charts summarising countries and organisations, in addition to progress charts for bonds and loans. These new charts provide visual market representations and can be tailored using our filters.
EF: What is next for EF Data?
BS: We continue to expand our sustainable loan market coverage and the granularity of our sustainable debt data; we have recently launched a new post-issuance allocation data module.
This dataset covers the percent of the bond proceeds allocated to UoP as reported in issuer impact and allocation reports. Allocation data provides more accurate insights of the flow of sustainable bond capital into specific areas and increases the transparency of the market.
Coupled with our recently added portfolio manager functionality, asset managers and investors can now accurately summarise the post-issuance allocation of their portfolios with a few clicks in our platform. The next big step for EF Data will be integrating impact metrics into our post-issuance data module. There are challenges around standardisation and benchmarking, but we will be bringing further impact insights to the market in early 2026.
For more information, see efdata.org
