To adapt to growth in the green bond market, CICERO in 2018 established a new company, CICERO Shades of Green, which provides independent research-based evaluations of green bond investment frameworks to determine their environmental robustness.
CICERO Shades of Green is a global leading provider of Second Opinions on green bonds.
Find out more on: www.cicero.green
CICERO provided the Second Opinion for the first green bond issued by the World Bank and have completed more than 100 Second Opinions for multinationals, corporate and municipalities across the world. Through the years, we have developed a scalable and flexible solution to provide environmental due diligence in a rapidly growing green bond market.
CICERO Shades of Green maintain close ties with CICERO, whose staff provide quality control and methodological development.
CICERO Shades of Green is using the Shades of Green methodology, a climate-science rating method developed by CICERO focusing on avoiding a lock-in of greenhouse gas emissions over the assets’ life time and promoting transparency on resilience planning and strategy. Green bond frameworks are rated from dark to light green. Together with global partners CICERO Shades of Green also provides Second Opinions on sustainability bonds.
Many of CICEROs reviews have been green bond landmarks globally: The first green sukuk issued by Tadau Energy in Malaysia; the first green city bond issued by Gothenburg, Sweden; the first green corporate bond issued by Swedish property company Vasakronan; the first green bond issued by the World Bank, as well as green bonds for the world's largest bank – ICBC of China.
CICERO Second Opinions have received several international awards. The Climate Bonds Initiative awarded CICERO for being the biggest second opinion provider in 2018 and 2016, while investors selected us as the Best External Review Provider for the Environmental Finance Green Bond Awards in both 2017 and 2018.