The rise of ESG in the municipal market

Socially responsible bond issuances have grown rapidly over the past decade due to a rise in global awareness of ESG factors, but will their popularity continue to expand? In this Leaders forum session from Texas Public Finance, moderator Lynne Funk, innovative editor at The Bond Buyer, is joined by Adebola (Bola) Kushimo, vice president and senior analyst at Moody's Investors Service; Kevin Horan, director of fixed income indices at S&P Dow Jones Indices; Melissa Dubowski, deputy finance director at the City of Houston; and Unmesh Bhide, managing director at J.P. Morgan for a discussion about the global trend toward greater transparency in financing public infrastructure assets. The expert panel also discussed how investors evaluate the qualitative environmental credentials of these projects relative to other green fixed-income investments and how pricing and evaluations, and the traders who use them, are factoring in ESG into their models.