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Transition to a low-carbon economy to achieve the Paris Agreement goal requires substantial investments. The green bond market shows good potential to help mobilize financial sources towards sustainable investments. In this paper, we compare the uptake of green bonds in Norway and Sweden from 2013 till 2019, with the aim to understand what drives the green bond market. Our study is one of the first comparative analyses specifically designed to explain differences in green bond uptake between two similar financial markets. The analysis can help us to identify factors that are transferable to other countries and that therefore can be important for facilitating the growth of green bonds in different markets. Data shows that there has been a faster growth in issuances in Sweden than Norway, and especially for the corporate sector and municipalities. When interviewing experienced green bond market participants in Norway and Sweden, we find that likely explanations are a business culture and financial institutions more focused on sustainability in Sweden, as well as a larger and more diversified corporate sector. In Norway, green bonds uptake may have been hampered by competition with high yield investments in oil & gas and shipping, a 'green' energy sector that considers green bonds to be superfluous, and many municipalities that are too small for green bond issuance. The experience from Sweden indicates that other countries wanting to facilitate uptake of green bonds should emphasize leadership on sustainability, collaboration between green bond issuers and investors, and active communication, high visibility, and thorough disclosure of sustainable finance activities. • Both Norway and Sweden are pioneers on green bonds, but the market has grown faster in Sweden. • Business culture and financial institutions are more focused on sustainability in Sweden. • Sweden has a larger and more diversified corporate sector. • Leadership on sustainability and issuer-investor collaboration will facilitate green bonds. • Active communication and high visibility of green bonds activities will stimulate the market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tourism, and thereby hotels, play a crucial role in the European economy. The hotel sector features high energy consumption, which greatly contributes to the global warming effect. Thus, there is a need to investigate environmentally friendly technologies that have the potential to reduce energy usage within this sector. Information regarding the current status of the energy consumption in hotels is essential. Therefore, a study of 140 hotels in Norway and Sweden is presented in this paper to identify successful and sustainable measures to reduce energy consumption and related emissions. The energy use, available energy sources and thermal systems in the hotels are studied over a five-year period to identify consumption trends. The results reveal that 70% of the hotels have a mean annual energy consumption between 150 and 250 kWh/m2. A shift towards sustainable energy sources is observed in the hotels from 2015 to 2019, where application and overall consumption of district heating and cooling have increased, while electrical energy consumption has been reduced. District heating is the most prominent source of heating and is applied as the primary heat source in 70% of the hotels. The specific energy consumption for the group hotels that apply district heating is 218.9 kWh/m2/year, which is nearly 25% higher than the specific energy consumption of the 9% of hotels that apply heat pump solutions as a primary heat source. Thus, there is a potential to reduce the specific energy consumption in hotels. Two integrated transcritical carbon dioxide (CO 2) heat pumps were investigated as a sustainable measure to reduce energy consumption. The results reveal that a reduction of thermal energy consumption of approximately 60% can be achieved. • Energy analysis of 140 hotels in Norway and Sweden. • District heating and cooling in hotels increased by 18.0 and 10.9% from 2015 to 2019. • Hotels with heat pumps use 19.9% less kWh/m2 than hotels with district heating. • CO 2 heat pumps in hotels can reduce thermal energy consumption by about 60%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]