<p><em><strong>Organised by: Business &amp; Science Poland</strong></em></p>
<p>From a perspective of an average European business, the European Green Deal introduces a ‘tectonic shift' in regulatory requirements. Scaling up the EU's reduction targets for 2030, with a view to achieving climate neutrality by 2050, impacts all the economic sectors. The European business largely supports these goals while emphasising the need to match the regulatory ambitions with realistic financing possibilities. The European Green Deal Investment Plan seeks to mobilise at least EUR 1 trillion in sustainable investments over the next decade alone. That scale requires unlocking the private sector's potential to address the climate change and foster conditions for investors to help finance the transition to an environmentally sustainable economy. The pace of introducing the green bonds is gradually taking up. However, only few market players have a solid experience or information about it. In that respect, securing an involvement of stakeholders from Central and Eastern EU, from the region with comparatively highest rate of investments needed to achieve ‘green transformation', is vital to secure their support for the legislative ambitions. Setting up the EU Green Bonds Standards has a potential to be an enabler of this process. The departure points in achieving the status of environmental contributors vary significantly across geographies and sectors. The capacity to transform the business operations in CEE is largely reliant on the national energy-mix. The Green Bonds are not unknown in the region and first attempts to shift investors attention has been made. The debate intends to recapitulate this experience and to answer, among others, the following questions: - How to achieve the effect of the scale in introducing the Green Bonds? How to make the instrument more attractive and widely accessible as they tend to be more costly than normal bonds? - What possible incentives are necessary to support the uptake of green bonds among market participants and vitally among those who are not yet ‘best in class' in achieving the sustainability goals? - Voluntary vs. Obligatory and Legislative vs. Non-legislative - which approaches can render highest interest?</p>