"‘Can booming social bond market really turn finance to the good side?’", 28 June 2018

Social bonds (SBs) [...] are designed to achieve socially responsible goals and deliver healthy returns for investors... [T]he goals and outcomes of the funded activity are at least as important as the return on the investment; ruminations on risk are, accordingly, apportioned equally across social outcomes and financial risk... The private sector is here following the profitable path it took with [...] green bonds... This is significant [...] because it [...] underlines the fact that profit and social benefits are not mutually exclusive. Some, like Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock [...] go further, stressing the essential need for business leaders to advance the “prosperity and security of their fellow citizens”, as well as their own profits... [T]his is potentially a corner-turning moment, leaving behind the perception that it always costs to do good... However, so much hinges on how these results are measured... The EU’s new Action Plan for Financing Sustainable Growth, for example, has been criticised for not taking human rights seriously... [T]he Social Bond Principles [...] are designed to encourage “transparency, disclosure and integrity in the development of the SB market”, but it is still too early to tell if they will... For the moment a socially responsible bond market remains more fable than fact. [also refers to Apple, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, J.P. Morgan, Ford, Gates]