A coalition of seventeen NGOs has sent an open letter to the signatories of the Green Bond Principles, calling for more information on green bonds to be made public.

The letter calls on the Principles to:

• explicitly require that information on second party reviews or other assurance, use of proceeds and annual reporting be placed in the public domain; and
• take steps to make clear that projects which come at the expense of human rights violations and significant negative social and environmental impacts should not be considered "green".

"We are increasingly concerned about the significant gap between the stated aims of the Green Bond Principles to increase transparency and disclosure, and their actual contents, which explicitly allow and provide for important information on green bonds to remain under wraps," said the letter.

"Combined with the decision of the Principles to avoid addressing the issue of "what is green" head-on, this lack of transparency means that Observers, civil society organisations and others do not have the information available to adequately scrutinise the market's development."

The letter can be downloaded here.

The Green Bond Principles secretariat sent a response, here.