Protected Agriculture in Mexico: Building the Methodology for the First Certified Agricultural Green Bond
Peer Reviewed
Date issued
May 2019
Subject
Climate Change;
Food Security;
Environmental Protection;
Renewable Energy;
Climate Change Mitigation;
Greenhouse Gas Emission;
Green Bond;
Green Finance;
Green Infrastructure
JEL code
O13 - Agriculture • Natural Resources • Energy • Environment • Other Primary Products;
Q12 - Micro Analysis of Farm Firms, Farm Households, and Farm Input Markets;
Q15 - Land Ownership and Tenure • Land Reform • Land Use • Irrigation • Agriculture and Environment;
Q54 - Climate • Natural Disasters and Their Management • Global Warming;
Q56 - Environment and Development • Environment and Trade • Sustainability • Environmental Accounts and Accounting • Environmental Equity • Population Growth;
Q18 - Agricultural Policy • Food Policy
Country
Mexico
Category
Technical Notes
The issuance of green bonds has grown rapidly in the past several years. However, agricultural green bonds have lagged far behind, because of the difficulties of developing international certifications, such as those of the Climate Bond Initiative (CBI). These certifications are essential, but demand the creation of comparable criteria and a certification approach that is applicable across several financial asset classes. This has proven to be methodologically and analytically complex in the case of agricultural green bonds because of the difficulties of assessing environmental and social benefits from different technologies in varying geographic and climatic regions. This paper describes the approach, methodology, analysis, and recommendations used to support a green bond for specific protected agricultural technologies in select crops in Mexico. The paper concludes with recommendations for defining minimum technological criteria that provide reasonable assurance to stakeholders that the expected environmental and social benefits will be achieved
