Green Bonds: a strategy for improving salmon aquaculture sustainability
Master thesis
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https://hdl.handle.net/11250/3089271Utgivelsesdato
2023Metadata
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Sammendrag
Green bond is sustainable finance that enables companies to involve in environmentallyfriendly initiatives and promote long-term sustainable development. To date there have onlybeen a few academic studies on green bond in seafood industry. Our analysis is the firstempirical studies designed to address the question of how does green bond advancessustainability in Norwegian salmon industry with the aim of addressing sub questions of whatsustainability initiatives are the four companies funding through their green bonds, howeffective are each of these initiatives towards sustainability, what is the economic rationale ofthe companies to acquire green bonds and is there any greenwashing present in the practices ofcompanies.
To answer the questions, the data were collected primarily from green bond impact reports andadditionally from annual reports, government websites, and different scientific literature. Theresearch design is based on three-dimensional approach where the practices were identified andfurther evaluated for the effectiveness by linking it to the UN SDGs and the objective of EUTaxonomy.
The findings indicates that all four companies have done a wide range of sustainabilityactivities funded through the green bonds. The prioritization of proceeds is seen in theenvironmental dimension of sustainability. However, it is essential to understand that obtainingthe best overall sustainability outcomes requires a balancing of all three dimensions:environmental, social, and economic. Likewise, the effectiveness of each initiative aligns withseveral the UN SDGs and the EU Taxonomy objectives. The finding also shows that certaininitiatives like RAS investments reduce freshwater demand but increase energy use and somecompanies are addressing these issues as well. To assess long-term sustainability benefits andaddress any drawbacks and trade-offs, more research and monitoring are needed in this case.Furthermore, SRI, CSR, and green bond motivators support economic rationale, according tothe study. Along with the positive result, the finding also reveals a few instances where theirclaims and actions contradict each other that reflects greenwashing. This paper provides aninsight to industry stakeholders to identify the most effective initiative that has successfullyachieved sustainability outcomes and functioned as industry best practices while takinggreenwashing into account.