Green bonds — debt taken on to finance projects with environmental benefits — hit a record last month with $50 billion issued, as more and more companies and governments turn to the instruments.

Adidas, French electricity firm EDF and telecoms firm Orange, along with the nations of Germany, Egypt and Sweden all issued green bonds in September, helping the volume jump by five times from August.

The value of green bonds issued so far this year climbed to more than $176 billion, a 26-percent increase from the same period in 2019.

The total includes instruments that meet the principles set out by the International Capital Market Association, the professional association that unites the global bond market and information compiled by Bloomberg.

The ICMA defines green bonds as those which finance renewable energy, energy efficiency, biodiversity, pollution reduction and other similar projects.

But as ECB executive board member Isabel Schnabel recently