Seamless exchange trading of top-tier carbon credits now available through revolutionary partnership

The Climate Action Reserve, North America’s premier carbon offset registry, and Carbon Trade Exchange today announced a partnership that allows carbon market participants to seamlessly trade climate reserve tonnes (CRTs) through a commodities exchange for the first time. The development signals strong growth in North America’s voluntary carbon market and, potentially, in California’s compliance carbon market, with over 12 million CRTs qualified to become early action offset credits in California’s market and more compliance-eligible credits being registered with the Reserve.

“This partnership brings new tools to the carbon market that will help increase transparency and also serve as evidence of the further maturation of the market. Advancements such as this are key to market growth and help to set the stage for working with other global markets in the future,” said Linda Adams, Chair of the Climate Action Reserve Board of Directors.

The new partnership links the Reserve and Carbon Trade Exchange systems, allowing transparent, exchange-cleared transactions on the Carbon Trade Exchange platform to be automatically reflected in the Reserve’s registry system. This linkage provides market participants with a simple, convenient and efficient transaction platform when transacting CRTs and other Reserve-issued credits.

“The voluntary carbon market is already global and Carbon Trade Exchange provides electronic, 24/7 trading services already to clients in 27 countries. We are extremely proud to provide this global access to buyers and sellers of climate reserve tonnes in a deal that provides voluntary pre-compliance and regulated carbon market participants the opportunity to buy credits wholesale, real-time electronically,” said Wayne Sharp, CEO of Carbon Trade Exchange.

All CRTs currently issued and those issued in the future can be traded through Carbon Trade Exchange. Currently, over 33 million CRTs have been registered with the Reserve. These credits were verified against the Reserve’s offset project protocols, four of which were adopted by the California Air Resources Board (ARB); credits issued under them are eligible to be transitioned to compliance offset credits issued by ARB. As an approved Offset Project Registry for California’s Cap-and-Trade Program, the Reserve is issuing more credits that are eligible to be transitioned to compliance credits.

“Advances in market infrastructure like this are critical to market liquidity and growth, but it is also important that the parties behind these advances have high-quality products and services. Without the trust that comes with that real, high-quality offset credits, the market won’t embrace these advances,” said Gary Gero, President of the Climate Action Reserve.