Greenium as a Sustainability Indicator of a Financial Instrument: Exploring the Relationship between ESG Ratings and the Green Bonds Yields

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🔬研究者:Empirical evidence on greenium and ESG ratings, useful for further modeling of green bond pricing.

🏢実務担当者:Corporate finance teams can use findings to understand how ESG ratings affect bond pricing and green bond issuance strategy.

🏛政策担当者:Regulators considering green bond standards can note the role of ESG disclosure in market premiums.

Introduction. In the context of the global transition to development principles, financial instruments focused on environmental and protective responsibility are becoming increasingly important. The market of green bonds is becoming particularly relevant. In Russia, its volume has increased almost 19 times over the past five years. In this regard, there is a need to study the factors determining the attractiveness of such tools for reducing, in particular, the role of ESG ratings and the phenomenon of greenium (awards for «green» status). Understanding the relationship between the issuer’s resistance and the market valuation of its debt obligations is key to forming an effective ESG policy and reducing the cost of capital. Goal. The study aims to analyze the relationships between ESG ratings of companies and a large greenium company, as well as to characterize the ability of greenium as a market indicator of issuers’ sustainability. Materials and methods. The work used data on the Russian and green bond markets over 2020-2025, including issues of Sberbank and Bank of America. The methodology is based on a synthesis of econometric analysis, comparative case studies, and adaptation of existing greenium valuation models based on ESG factors. Special attention is paid to the modification of regression and structural models to include the ESG rating as an explanatory variable. Results and discussion. The study conducted a comprehensive analysis of the phenomenon of greenium – the premium for the green status of bonds – and its relationship with ESG ratings of issuers. Based on empirical data and regression analysis, the existence of an inverse relationship between the credit spread and the ESG rating level has been confirmed. It has been revealed that the size and mark of the premium are determined by a set of factors, including the issuer’s industry affiliation, the effectiveness of funded green projects, market conditions and the quality of ESG information disclosure. Conclusion. Thus, the hypotheses put forward are generally confirmed. However, due to the difficulty of accurately estimating greenium in the share price, the high interdependence of sustainability factors, the diversity of investors and, as a result, the volatility of the value of companies, it is not possible to identify direct relationship between greenium and the ESG rating based on data from 2025. Nevertheless, the development of the trend of sustainable development contributes to clarifying the boundaries of the «green» policy of organizations.

• semanticscholar https://vestnikskfu.elpub.ru/jour/article/download/3300/2884first seen 2026-07-18 07:49:29