GREEN BONDS AS THE DRIVING FORCE OF ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE THE EUROPEAN PERSPECTIVE

This paper identifies regions with high environmental performance by assessing the size of green bond issuance in European countries from a cause-and-effect perspective. Cluster analysis and descriptive statistics were used to meet this research objective. The research subject was the size of green bond issuance, understood as the driving force for the green economy in European countries. The main findings of the research show a strong correlation between the size of green bond issuance and environmental performance. Due to limited access to source data, the analysis of green sources of financing was restricted only to the size of green bond issuance, excluding other funding sources. Identifying the regions with high environmental performance and high value of green bond issuance will allow for an effective support plan for pro-ecological actions by using soft and complex tools of green policy, bearing in mind existing limitations, too. This approach determines groups of countries that share similar features, i.e., the ones that take advantage of green projects financed by the issuance of green bonds and simultaneously have a high environmental performance index.