Green Gains: The Impact of REITs’ Environmental Performance on Sustainability-Linked Loan Interest Rates

This paper examines the relationship between environmental performance and the use of sustainability-linked loans (SLLs) by U.S. real estate investment trusts (REITs). We find that a 1% reduction in past carbon emissions increases the REITs' likelihood of taking an SLL by 29.6%, while a 1% slower growth in past emissions reduces the interest spread by 1.69 basis points. Our results reveal that banks reward REITs' previous environmental record through SLLs, whereas non-SLL interest spreads remain unaffected. These findings underscore the importance of explicit sustainability-linked financial instruments in incentivizing decarbonization efforts within the real estate sector.