Green bonds issued by Polish companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange Catalyst

The aim of this article is to characterise the market for green bonds (GBs) issued by Polish companies and to highlight the key features of this segment in comparison with traditional debt financing. The analysis is exploratory in nature and is based on publicly available information about issuers for whom the use of green bonds and corporate bonds linked to sustainable development (SLBs). The data collected indicate that the market in Poland is no longer purely sporadic and encompasses entities from sectors such as energy, banking, property, telecommunications, retail and logistics. At the same time, its structure remains centred on a few major issuers and several large transactions, including Polenergia’s issue worth PLN 750 million and Mosty Magazynów Energii’s issue worth PLN 100 million. To organise the findings, a simple descriptive analysis was carried out using a benchmark consisting of the average yields on ordinary corporate bonds listed on Catalyst. The yields on green bonds were also compared with those on KGHM S.A. bonds, which were treated as representative of the most creditworthy corporate debt issuer. The results indicate that, relative to the average spread for ordinary corporate bonds, they are nevertheless cheaper by approximately 0.72% (lower cost of debt), which points to a moderate price premium (greenium). Compared with KGHM S.A., the issuer with the highest creditworthiness, green bonds exhibit a higher spread, which mainly reflects the difference in credit risk. The study also found that there is a positive correlation between the size of the issue and a lower cost of debt.