What are green debt securities? SEBI's 13 categories

Green debt securities are ordinary listed bonds with one condition attached: the money has to go somewhere specific. In India the test is not a label or a marketing claim but a closed list. Regulation 2(1)(q) of the SEBI (Issue and Listing of Non-Convertible Securities) Regulations, 2021 names thirteen categories of project, and a debt security only counts as green if its proceeds fund one of them. This guide covers what those categories are, what the issuer has to disclose before and after listing, and what changed on 27 February 2026. It is not investment advice.

What are the categories of green debt securities?

The current definition was substituted with effect from 2 February 2023, and the substitution widened the list from nine categories to thirteen. Those categories are renewable and sustainable energy including wind and bioenergy; clean transportation including mass and public transportation; climate change adaptation, including infrastructure resilience and climate observation and early warning systems; energy efficiency including efficient and green buildings; sustainable waste management; sustainable land use including forestry, agriculture and afforestation; biodiversity conservation; pollution prevention and control, which expressly picks up sectors under the India Cooling Action Plan; circular economy adapted products and eco-efficient products; blue bonds; yellow bonds; transition bonds; and any other category SEBI specifies later.

Three of those are worth naming as their own instruments, because the market usually treats them that way. Blue bonds raise funds for sustainable water management and the sustainable maritime sector, which the regulation spells out as sustainable shipping, sustainable fishing, fully traceable sustainable seafood, ocean energy and ocean mapping. Yellow bonds raise funds for solar energy generation and its upstream and downstream industries. Transition bonds raise funds for moving to a more sustainable form of operations in line with India's Intended Nationally Determined Contributions, and carry extra requirements of their own, covered in what is a transition bond.

What changed in the 2023 definition?

This is where a reader working from an older summary goes wrong. The pre-2023 list is still printed in the consolidated regulations, in a footnote directly beneath the current clause, and it reads as plausibly current. Two differences matter. Sustainable water management was a standalone category in the old list, at clause (iii); it now sits inside the blue bonds category. And the old clause (i) read "renewable and sustainable energy including wind, solar, bioenergy"; the current clause (i) drops the word solar, which moved into the yellow bonds category.

What does an issuer have to disclose up front?

Chapter IX of SEBI's Master Circular for issue and listing of non-convertible securities, securitised debt instruments, security receipts, municipal debt securities and commercial paper, dated 15 October 2025, sets the initial disclosures for the offer document, on both public issues and private placements.

The issuer states the environmental sustainability objectives of the issue. It describes the decision-making process for deciding which projects are eligible, including the criteria used and any Indian or global taxonomies, green standards or certifications it referenced. It describes the system for tracking where the proceeds actually go. It identifies the projects or areas the money will fund, including any refinancing of existing green projects, with an indicative split between financing and refinancing. It states how unallocated proceeds will be parked in the meantime. And it discloses the perceived social and environmental risks of those projects along with a mitigation plan.

What does an issuer have to disclose after listing?

The continuous disclosures go with the annual report and the financial results. Utilisation of proceeds is reported as tracked, and has to be verified by an external auditor's report covering both the internal tracking method and the allocation of funds. Unutilised proceeds are reported for each ISIN separately, which is the level at which this data becomes usable; the identifier itself is explained in what is an ISIN.

The annual report adds the list of projects funded with amounts disbursed, qualitative performance indicators and, where feasible, quantitative measures of environmental impact, the methods and key assumptions behind those metrics, and how the mitigation plan was deployed. Impact reporting is required project by project. On top of that, Annexure IX-A requires major elements of Business Responsibility and Sustainability Reporting, which means energy consumption and intensity, water withdrawal and discharge, air emissions, Scope 1 and Scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions, waste by category, operations near ecologically sensitive areas and environmental law compliance. The wider framework those tables come from is set out in what is BRSR.

Chapter IX came into force for all issues of green debt securities launched on or after 1 April 2023.

Who checks the claim?

Until early 2026 the third-party review requirement sat on a comply-or-explain footing. That changed on 27 February 2026, when SEBI deleted paragraph 1.8 of Chapter IX and inserted a new paragraph 5 in its place, with immediate effect. The issuer now appoints an independent third-party reviewer or certifier to ascertain that the issuance accords with the Regulation 2(1)(q) definition, including review of the project evaluation and selection criteria. The reviewer must be independent of the issuer, its directors, senior management and key managerial personnel, must be remunerated in a way that prevents conflicts of interest, and must have expertise in assessing ESG debt securities. The review may take the form of a second party opinion, verification, certification, or a scoring or rating. An ESG rating provider registered with SEBI may also be appointed.

The reason SEBI wrote the rule that way is set out in its own greenwashing chapter, covered in how to spot greenwashing in green bonds.

Green debt securities are a disclosure regime before they are anything else: a closed category list, a tracked use of proceeds, an audited utilisation report and a named external reviewer. Where the instrument sits in the wider debt market is covered in what is an NCD and NCD vs bond. Flock reports public regulatory filings with every claim sourced and dated. What any of it means for your money is your call to make.