A $1.5 Trillion Loan Market Gets Stung by Anti-ESG Movement (1)

US borrowers are retreating en masse from the world’s second-biggest ESG debt class.

The $1.5 trillion market for sustainability-linked loans, in which borrowing is tied to environmental, social or governance goals, has seen an overall slowdown in volumes this year as both interest rates and greenwashing fears rise. But nowhere has the decline been as precipitous as in the US, where the number of new sustainability-linked loans is down 80% from a year earlier, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

That slump reflects the uniquely tense political environment that borrowers in the US have to navigate, according to Jacomijn ...