Energy Security, Sustainable Development and the Green Bond Market

Abstract

Many countries are pursuing energy security (ES) in their economies while implementing sustainable development goals (SDGs). Relevant policies may include: (1) access to efficient alternative and preferably renewable energy sources (RESs); and (2) reductions in conventionally obtained energy consumption. As the demand for energy is growing and alternative energy resources are expensive, new ways of financing projects to improve ES are of special interest, e.g., issuing green bonds. In such cases, the obtained funds are allocated to projects that can both improve ES and help to achieve SDGs. The aim of the study was to explore the dependences (in the sense of Granger causality) between the green bond (GB) market, different aspects of sustainable development, as measured by global indicators taken from a family of environmental NASDAQ OMX indices, and ES represented by crude oil prices. The methodology is based on the vector autoregression model. The findings reveal evidence of a short-term dependence between the GB market, ES and the multidimensional nature of sustainable development.

Sustainability, Uncertainty, and Risk: Time-Frequency Relationships

“…As fear and uncertainty increase in the financial markets, such heightened risk aversion is anticipated to impact the Sustainability Index negatively. Similarly, the co-movement of the Sustainability World Index against the ICE BofA MOVE Index is expected to be negative, too, because an increase in market uncertainty significantly influences the connectedness between green bonds and investor attention [50,51]. Additionally, following [51], VIX and MOVE indexes, as proxy variables of economic policy uncertainty, are expected to have a positive correlation.…”

Addressing Energy Poverty in the Energy Community: Assessment of Energy, Environmental, Economic, and Social Benefits for an Italian Residential Case Study

“…In addition, the economic analysis is performed by investigating the simple payback period (SPB) that indicates the number of years necessary to balance the initial investment cost of the PV plant (IC PV ) and the annual cash flows that are represented by OC REC El , as reported in Equation (11).…”

“…The Italian Institute of Statistics estimates that in Italy, over two million families are in absolute poverty (about 7.7%), resulting in 5.6 million of absolute poor people (the incidence among individuals rises up to 9.4%), also due to the increase of energy, metal, and food costs [10]. Indeed, Italy and many other countries are pursuing two objectives that could help the EP questions: the energy security in their economies and the implementation of sustainable development goals [11] by defining the high influence of energy questions on the economic balance of their country [12]. In this context, the EU is committed to fighting EP by protecting vulnerable people through different policy actions.…”

Assessment of the coupling coordination relationship between the green financial system and the sustainable development system across China

“…(3) The indirect channels through which green finance affects the SDGs. Green finance can promote green technology innovation and the development of green enterprise, accelerate the transition from traditional energy consumption, mitigate environmental pollution and climate change, and regulate the relationship between innovation and the energy environment to achieve the SDGs 15 , 23 , 24 . Previous studies have primarily focused on the mechanisms and effect sizes of green finance on the SDGs, with the object of study mostly being the overall SDGs or one of the 17 SDG subgoals.…”