BERKELEY – The Goldman School of Public Policy and the California State Treasurer’s Office led the inaugural California Green Bond Market Development Committee meeting on June 4th at the University of California, Berkeley. The Committee is working to promote and expand financing for climate-friendly infrastructure through green bonds. 

“Green bonds are used to finance the infrastructure of a climate-challenged world,” said California State Treasurer Fiona Ma. “By investing sooner rather than later in physical assets that support positive impacts on our climate – or which make the public infrastructure we all rely on more resilient to climate change – we can telegraph to the rest of the world in general, and investors in California’s bonds in particular, that California intends to lead in a meaningful way toward the health of our planet. We need to leverage California’s market presence and leadership to develop a strategy that ensures that green bonds marketed to investors truly are green.”

The California Green Bond Market Development Committee was established through support from the Hewlett Foundation, and builds upon work convened by the California Treasurer’s Office examining potential policy changes and market reforms for green finance. According to the Climate Bonds Initiative, global green bond issuance has grown to almost $170 billion but there is still a long way to go— $90 trillion of investment in climate projects is needed by 2030. Green bonds can finance infrastructure projects supporting resilience, adaptation, or climate response.

Dean Henry Brady of the UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy opened the conference on June 4th, stating, "we shape our cities and our lives through our investments in infrastructure. Investment decisions have consequences, not just for decades but for centuries.   Policies and best practices that support Green Bonds can help to make sure that we don't ‘bake-in’ poor decisions that increase climate pollution."

The California Green Bond Market Development Committee consists of 27 academics, engineers, public policy experts, attorneys, and climate scientists from:

• UC Berkeley Goldman School
• The California State Treasurer’s Office
• Climate Bonds Initiative
• NV5
• KPMG
• Neighborly
• California State Teachers’ Retirement System
• Standard & Poors (S&P)
• San Francisco Public Utilities Commission
• Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority
• ceres
• Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP
• California Statewide Communities Development Authority
• Stradling, Yocca, Carlson & Rauth
• Stifel
• Revalue
• Governor’s Office of Planning and Research
• Goldman Sachs
• Natural Resources Defense Council
• UBS
• Scripps Institute of Oceanography 

David Wooley, Director of the Goldman School of Public Policy’s Environmental Center, a principle organizer the Committee, stated, “we know there is huge demand for climate friendly fixed income investments.  This committee will help meet that demand through training and education of bond issuers and investors, and through policy innovations that can help shift huge amounts of capital toward to green infrastructure."