CSE with EU-funded Green Recovery Facility drives SL’s GSS+ bond market

From left: SEC Deputy Director General and Officer-In-Charge Tushara Jayarathna, Sustainable Business Specialist (Expertise France GSS+ Bonds Activity Lead) Shayani Weeresinghe, CSE CEO Rajeeva Bandaranaike, Expertise France Lead Project Manager Morgan Rohel and Baastel Consultancy Team Senior Sustainable Finance Expert Jason Taylor 

Sri Lanka’s sustainable finance market continues to gain momentum as the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) collaborated with the European Union (EU)-funded Green Recovery Facility, implemented by Expertise France, to advance the country’s growing pipeline of green, social, sustainable and sustainability-linked (GSS+) bonds through a series of targeted market-building programmes earlier last month.
The CSE collaborated with the EU-funded Green Recovery Facility implemented by Expertise France on a combined training-of-trainers (ToT) programme and a C-suite keynote session with a focus on incentivising potential issuers and investment banks for GSS+ bonds earlier this month, in addition to a separate ToT programme for independent external verifiers and investors aimed at strengthening the enabling environment for a pipeline of GSS+ bonds. 
The EU Green Recovery Facility is a EUR 5 million initiative, which began in 2023 and was implemented by Expertise France and aims to bring about economic opportunities through sustainability practices, driving both growth and resilience. The facility facilitates action on sustainable energy, climate action and sustainable finance, by undertaking education programmes with governments and businesses to identify key actions, stimulate innovation and unlock sustainability-aligned public and private sector investment. 
A key focus of this initiative has been strengthening the sustainable finance ecosystem, including the development of the GSS+ bond market and a mechanism for national coordination.
The programmes were implemented in collaboration with the Finance, Planning and Economic Development Ministry, Central Bank of Sri Lanka and Securities and Exchange Commission of Sri Lanka. 
The rapid evolution of Sri Lanka’s GSS+ bond market has been driven by a high level of coordination across institutions and these efforts have helped to establish the foundations of a credible sustainable finance ecosystem through regulatory alignment, market guidance, issuer engagement and investor readiness. 
CSE CEO Rajeeva Bandaranaike stated, “Sri Lanka’s GSS+ bond market has evolved significantly within a relatively short period, transitioning from a nascent market towards a more structured and internationally recognised sustainable finance ecosystem. The continued collaboration between regulators, market institutions, development partners and initiatives such as the EU-funded Green Recovery Facility implemented by Expertise France has played an important role in strengthening market confidence, technical capacity and the pipeline of credible sustainable finance instruments.”
Since the introduction of Sri Lanka’s GSS+ bond framework in 2024, the market has collectively raised approximately Rs.82 billion (around EUR 216 million), representing nearly 40 percent of total debt capital raised through the CSE in 2025, across green, blue, social, sustainability and sustainability-linked instruments, financing priority sectors such as renewable energy, energy efficiency, water and coastal resilience and inclusive social infrastructure. What began as a nascent market has rapidly evolved into an increasingly coordinated and internationally recognised sustainable finance ecosystem — supported by regulatory oversight, public-private collaboration, active issuer engagement and growing investor confidence.
This growing international recognition was further reinforced at the 2026 Environmental Finance Sustainable Debt Awards, where three Sri Lankan institutions, DFCC Bank, Bank of Ceylon and Commercial Bank of Ceylon, received international recognition for innovative GSS+ bond issuances, reflecting the market’s growing credibility and international recognition.