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2021 May 04 | Buyers of Voluntary Carbon Offsets, a Regional Analysis – the Third and Final Installment of EM’s 2020 State of the Voluntary Carbon Markets
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What’s inside? This installment features European & North American Buyers Offsets Prices, Volumes, and Insights, highlighting some notable similarities and disparities between European and North American buyers, showing that in 2019:
- Compared to Europe, a greater but declining portion of public sector and non-profit buyers are present in North America.
- In both regions, the Finance/Insurance sector bought relatively high volumes of carbon credits.
- Likely for reasons of supply, Europe was more likely to purchase international credits while North America tended to go domestic.
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Closing the Carbon Offsets Issuances & Retirements Gap, State of the Carbon Offsets Standards’ Issuances & Retirements, 2021 Quarter 1
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EM Insights Brief: Closing the Carbon Offsets Issuances & Retirements Gap, State of the Carbon Offsets Standards’ Issuances & Retirements, 2021 Quarter 1
We’ve aggregated data derived from standards’ registries, including Verra’s Verified Carbon Standard (VCS), Gold Standard, American Carbon Registry, and Climate Action Reserve, Plan Vivo, and the California Air Resources Board to bring you the latest updates and historical roundup of independent and compliance offsets standards. Download now and stay tuned for the next EM Insights Brief on carbon offset buyers’ data from the 2020 EM Global Carbon Survey to be published at the end of April.
What’s inside? 2021 has already proven to be a landmark year in carbon markets. Our findings show compelling shifts, such as:
- Retirements surpassed issuances in January 2021 for the first time since 2017. The increase was primarily driven by forestry project retirements.
- VCS retirements have more than doubled, Plan Vivo nearly doubled, and Gold Standard increased by 40% compared to Q1 2020.
- Over two-thirds of the world’s issuances in Q1 2021 were located in the United States, India, Turkey, Cambodia, and China.
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Building upon the first installment of SOVCM 2020, this second installment presents additional EM data and analysis in light of recent recommendations from the Institute of International Finance’s (IIF’s) Taskforce on Scaling Voluntary Carbon Markets (the Taskforce) to provide insights into.
Key Elements of this installment include:
- How voluntary carbon offset market participants price both core carbon and additional attributes (e.g., project types, co-benefits, location, vintage); and,
- The ways EM data can inform this price discovery going forward.
Download the first installment.
In this installment, we discuss key insights and findings garnered from Forest Trends’ annual 2020 Ecosystem Marketplace Carbon Survey cycle.
Key Findings from this installment:
- Corporate carbon-neutral pledges fueled a record transaction volume of at least 104 MtCO2e in 2019, which is an increase of 6 percent over 2018. Figures may be adjusted with data from new respondents.
- Volume has been surprisingly strong in 2020. Anecdotal evidence based on interviews with market participants indicates it may even exceed that of 2019, despite the COVID-19 pandemic. Broader pledges have compensated for the loss of volume from the aviation and tourism sectors.
- Average offset prices remained flat in 2019, but with wide variance by type. Prices for offsets associated with Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) and Natural Climate Solutions (NCS), for example, increased 30 percent, while prices for offsets from renewable energy decreased 16 percent.
- Price and volume moved in opposite directions for these leading offset types. Agriculture, forestry, and other land use (AFOLU) volume dropped 28 percent and renewable energy volume surged by 78 percent.
- Despite the lower volume, the market value of AFOLU offsets was more than twice that of Renewable Energy, and demand for offsets associated with forest management in developing countries (i.e., REDD+) remains especially strong.
2021 EM Strategic Supporters & Collaborators
As an initiative of non-profit Forest Trends, Ecosystem Marketplace’s work would not be possible without generous financial and in-kind support. We are seeking sponsors for our work, including tracking environmental markets, reporting on news, and future editions of this newsletter. Click here to contact us about sponsorship and advertising.
In 2006, Ecosystem Marketplace was initially created to improve transparency and price discovery in the voluntary space, as there is no centralized system for transacting voluntary carbon credits. Since then, our team has annually distributed surveys to our network of project developers, investors, retailers, and brokers to collect confidential information about their voluntary carbon offset market transactions. The resulting reports, provided free of charge, provide all market participants – from small project developers to large corporate buyers to policymakers – a comprehensive view of market conditions.
