Assembling sustainable assets:
reflections on the production of value in the Brazilian agribusiness green bond market
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.29327/2791822.10.2-4Keywords:
green bonds; financial assets; sustainability; agribusinessAbstract
Green bonds are fixed-income debt instruments whose earnings must be allocated exclusively to financing projects that generate environmental benefits, especially with regard to climate change mitigation and adaptation. In this article, I seek to describe and analyse the valuation process through which agricultural projects or activities become legible as “green” assets, creating a stable, recurring, and secure source of income from the perspective of investors. By examining this technopolitical process that assigns a sustainable value to Brazilian agribusiness assets, I argue that the procedures, imaginaries, and governance mechanisms that shape the global green bond market combine generalizing guidelines and principles with verification instruments that isolate segments of complex and extensive value chains. As a result, assessments of the sustainable qualities of these assets end up detaching these chain fragments from the sociopolitical and territorial dynamics in which they are intrinsically involved. Thus, such devices can contribute to obliterating both unsustainable aspects of agribusiness and transparency in green bond transactions.
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