Voluntary Carbon Market Tripled In 2007, Hit $331M

Ecosystem Marketplace and New Carbon Finance have released a report, "State of the Voluntary Carbon Markets: Forging the Frontier," to highlight the more than twenty new independent standards for verifying and validating voluntary offsets. Compiled from 150 suppliers of carbon offsets, registries and brokers, the report identifies key trends in the voluntary carbon markets.

Among them:

• The average price paid to offset one ton of CO2 or equivalent greenhouse gases rose 49 percent from 2006 to 2007.
• Volume in the over-the-counter market nearly tripled in 2007.
• Ecosystem Marketplace and New Carbon Finance valued the international OTC market at $258 million in 2007. Together with the CCX, which was valued at $72 million, the global voluntary market was worth a total of $331 million in 2007. This more than triples the 2006 market value of $97 million.
• In the OTC market, energy efficiency, renewable energy, methane destruction, and forestry- and land-based projects were the most dominant in 2007.

Milo Sjardin, Head of North American Operations at New Carbon Finance said that relative to 2006, the market value has grown by 240 percent.

According to a January report from Point Carbon, an Oslo-based group of GHG analysts, the global carbon trade rose 80 percent last year to $60 billion.