“Early on in the green bond market, when we were developing the principles, it was absolutely critical to remind ourselves constantly that perfect was the enemy of good. We wanted to make sure that the approach we took was an approach that was credible but also provided flexibility. ”
— Marilyn Ceci
Green bonds reshaped parts of sustainable finance and placed transparency and disclosure at the core of fixed-income markets. Although they didn’t change credit risk they managed to change how investors evaluate credibility, disclosure, and intent.
This 2-in-1 compilation revisits two earlier conversations about the early days of green bonds, when issuers and investors were still figuring out how the product worked. This was before sustainable finance went mainstream. In that period, climate reporting was uneven and measurement frameworks were still taking shape.
Together, these conversations explain why green bonds mattered even though they didn’t change how bonds work financially. They became a way for companies to explain their climate and sustainability plans to investors, with reporting on how proceeds were used. You’ll also hear how simple standards helped the market scale without losing credibility, and how nuclear energy re-entered the conversation as taxonomies and investor views evolved.
You’ll hear highlights from the interviews with Marilyn Ceci and Romina Reversi. Both worked inside JP Morgan when the green bond market took shape.
Marilyn Ceci, Managing Director and Senior Advisor to the Center for Carbon Transition at JP Morgan
As a co-author of the Green Bond Principles, Marilyn Ceci helped shape the early green bond market, putting voluntary guardrails in place that allowed it to grow while staying liquid and usable for fixed-income investors.
She worked directly with the IFC on the first benchmark green bond in 2012, an issuance that helped move the market beyond small, illiquid transactions and into a format institutional investors could allocate to. Much of that early work involved repeated conversations with investors about what a green bond was, what it was not, and why earmarking and reporting mattered.
Throughout the conversation, she is clear that green bonds were never meant to change credit risk or alter the fundamentals of fixed income. In her own words, “It was really more of a communication vehicle than anything.”
Their value came from use-of-proceeds disclosure, reporting back to investors, and clear expectations, which led her to argue that impact in fixed income looks different and rests more on transparency and investor signaling than on traditional project-level additionality.
Marilyn Ceci: Full episode
Marilyn Ceci: YouTube
Romina Reversi, Managing Director and Head of Sustainable Investment Banking Americas at Crédit Agricole CIB
Romina Reversi joined JP Morgan’s ESG Debt Capital Markets team in 2015, when sustainable finance was still niche and green bonds had to be explained from scratch. Much of her early work focused on educating issuers on how green bonds functioned, why investors cared, and how use of proceeds and reporting shaped credibility.
She describes those years as a mix of structuring, sales, and inventing processes as the market took shape.
During her time at JP Morgan, she led or participated in hundreds of sustainable debt transactions across green, social, and sustainability-linked bonds. She explains that green bonds worked because they gave issuers a clear way to communicate strategy to investors, while sustainability-linked bonds added financial incentives tied to future performance.
At Crédit Agricole, she now leads sustainable investment banking for the Americas, focusing on structuring labeled bonds, sustainability-linked instruments, and ESG advisory across the bank. She also spends significant time with investors to stay aligned with market expectations, including how changes in taxonomies reopened debates around areas like nuclear energy.
Romina Reversi: Full episode
Romina Reversi: YouTube
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Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. You can watch the interview on YouTube here.
What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.
SHOW NOTES:
[00:00] Introduction
[03:36] Marilyn Ceci on early green bonds
[07:50] What green bonds are versus traditional bonds
[14:42] Why issuers choose green bonds over conventional debt
[17:15] Do green bonds deliver pricing advantages or greeniums
[19:17] Examples of real-world green bond financings
[24:24] Evolution from green to broader ESG bond markets
[30:49] Challenges and criticisms of green bonds
[38:44] Romina Reversi’s pivot into founding ESG capital markets at JP Morgan
[40:29] Early sustainable finance misconceptions explained
[42:08] Building ESG teams from scratch challenges
[43:41] Green bonds explained for newcomers
[45:29] First tech green bonds lessons learned
[46:50] Romina’s role at Crédit Agricole
[54:21] The shift in sentiment towards nuclear energy
[58:52] Greenwashing criticism and additionality debate
MORE QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEWS:
“Communicating your sustainability agenda to your broader stakeholder community is extremely important. And the green bond is the way in which you do that, because part of the obligation is that the issuer is required to report back to investors on what they did with the money and its impact. ”
— Marilyn Ceci
“Criticism of green bonds often misses their purpose. It assumes additionality only exists if a project wouldn’t have happened otherwise, but that’s not how green bonds work. They give investors transparency to direct their dollars toward specific green purposes, and in that sense, transparency itself is the additionality. ”
— Romina Reversi
