Orange Bond

Orange Bond Principles

The Orange Bond Principles™

The Orange Bond Principles™ (OBP) aim to support issuers, investors, arrangers, and approved verifiers in facilitating Orange Bond transactions. To qualify as an Orange Bond, transactions are expected to align with three overarching Principles: (1) Gender-Positive Capital Allocation; (2) Gender-Lens Capacity and Diversity in Leadership; and (3) Transparency in the Investment Process and Reporting. 

Issuers will be required to provide investors with an overview of how they comply with the Principles and are encouraged to secure an external review or second party opinion from an Approved Verifier. 

Download the OBP now to start building a gender-empowered financial system!

Join the Orange Bond Advisory Council 2023

The Orange Bond Advisory Council will be responsible for advising the Steering Committee and expanding market awareness for the Initiative. Click below to indicate your organization’s interest in applying for the Orange Bond Advisory Council 2023. Upon completion, we will contact you with additional information about the application process and the subsequent steps.

Become an Orange Bond Approved Verifier

Approved Verifier will provide a second party opinion about whether an issuance is in compliance with the Orange Bond Principlesand provide an external review confirming the bond can be marketed to investors as an Orange Bond. Click below to express your organization’s interest in the Orange Bond Approved Verifier training program.  

The Orange Revolution: Financial Market Innovations Towards a Gender-Smart Net Zero – Skoll Centre Blog

The Problem: 

With less than a decade to address critically climate change and the other UN SDGs, the pressure is on to find innovative and inclusive solutions.  The pre-COVID US$2-3 trillion annual SDG financing gap in developing economies has increased to an estimated $4-5 trillion per year.  Given this financing gap, the global financial system is positioned to play an integral and increasingly important role in addressing the gap.  However, much of the architecture of the global financial system was built without designing for the unique needs of developing economies, designing for environmental responsibility, gender equality, or equality more broadly.

The Opportunities:

The Environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) movement has promoted rebuilding the financial system to consider these risks better, but even deeper integration of these considerations is fundamental for post-COVID recovery and deceleration of climate change. And both of these battles are fundamentally intertwined with gender equality:

Building ‘Forward’ Better:  The COVID-19 pandemic, ongoing conflicts worldwide, and the climate crisis have jointly exacerbated the regressive effects on gender inequality – as a result, the eradication of the global gender pay gap is now set back by over a century.  Women were almost twice as likely to lose their livelihoods during the pandemic, due to various factors such as disproportionate childcare burdens to labor market asymmetries.  Building forward better underscores an opportunity to redress these failures and re-structure economies that better integrate and empower women.  Closing the gender-regressive gap in the workforce could add up to US$13 trillion to global GDP by 2030.  In light of this substantial economic impact, gender equality must be central to post-COVID recovery.

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Durreen Shahnaz: Climate change is a feminist issue – The Peak

In her own words, the founder of Impact Investment Exchange tells us why climate change and feminism come hand in hand.

I stared at the painting. I squinted my eyes, and tilted my head, but could not figure out why the painting did not look right. I like to think of myself as a painter, but when I try to take flavours from my favorite feminist painter, Frida, I struggle.

Frida could effortlessly blend with oil, her political views, agony, and love as spirited attempts to express her own reality. I chewed on the end of my paintbrush, wondering how she did so time and again. The answer stared back at me from in between the interplay of green and blue textures.

 

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