MOU will create new voluntary carbon credit and co-benefits indices leveraging AI
LONDON and SINGAPORE (February 24, 2021) – S&P Global Platts (“Platts”), the leading independent provider of information and benchmark prices for the commodities and energy markets, today announced that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Viridios Capital to launch a series of Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) driven carbon indices to enhance transparency into the complex voluntary carbon credits and co-benefit markets.
Jonty Rushforth, head of price group, S&P Global Platts said: “The complex voluntary carbon markets are evolving at a rapid rate. Combining Platts robust and trusted price assessment data insight alongside Viridios Capital’s proven environmental AI technology will provide market participants with greater transparency into the market value of voluntary carbon credits and their associated co-benefits”.
Co-benefits are terms attached to carbon credits providing evidence of meeting the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) defined by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015, including gender equality, clean water and biodiversity. The large number of factors such as project technology, geography and SDGs present significant challenges in determining the value of credits and a robust AI modelled approach will bring a new level of clarity to market participants.
Under the terms of the agreement, Platts will co-create a series of AI-driven carbon indices to enhance transparency into voluntary carbon credits and co-benefits. The new indices will leverage environmental AI expertise provided by Viridios Capital, which has been trained on over 20,000 data points representing transactions from across the range of carbon projects around the world. The model will also include daily inputs from a range of Platts price assessment data to produce evaluations for sets of credits with specified co-benefits including project types, vintages, locations and standards.
Eddie Listorti, CEO and co-founder of Viridios Capital said: “We are proud to partner with S&P Global Platts in bringing pricing transparency to the voluntary carbon markets through our AI technology. We are confident that the outcome will be to greatly assist companies to invest more in mitigating their environmental and social footprint while facilitating the flow of capital into urgent climate and sustainability initiatives”.
The new assessments will complement Platts growing suite of voluntary carbon price assessments including the Platts CEC, which reflect the daily value of CORSIA-eligible carbon credits, and was successfully launched in January 2021.
Notes to editors
Carbon credits are generated by specific projects that avoid, reduce or remove GHG emissions, and are verified and validated by a set of independent standards that have been created by coalitions of NGOs and market participants over the last few decades.
The voluntary carbon markets have evolved and encompass a large range of project types, geographies and standards ranging from renewables in India to forestry in Brazil. Voluntary carbon credits have been embraced by investors and corporations as a tool for financing the reduction of emissions, best currently implemented at the industry level by the International Civil Aviation Organization’s CORSIA program, which has created the mechanism to allow airlines to credibly offset their GHG emissions.
Under the ICAO, airlines have committed to reducing their Carbon footprint through an initial voluntary period (2021-2023) and a subsequent mandatory reduction period (2024 onwards), per the registry and methodology limits set out here: https://www.icao.int/environmental-protection/CORSIA/Pages/default.aspx
Media Contacts:
Platts:
Americas: Kathleen Tanzy + 1 917-331-4607, [email protected]
Asia: Melissa Tan + 65-6597-6241, [email protected]
EMEA: Alex Brog +44 207 176 7645, [email protected] and Russ Gerry +44 207 176 3569 [email protected]
Viridios Capital:
Geoff Clear, +61 478 409 171, [email protected]
Andrew Glass, +65 9278 3155, [email protected]
About S&P Global Platts
At S&P Global Platts, we provide the insights; you make better informed trading and business decisions with confidence. We’re the leading independent provider of information and benchmark prices for the commodities and energy markets. Customers in over 150 countries look to our expertise in news, pricing and analytics to deliver greater transparency and efficiency to markets. S&P Global Platts coverage includes oil, gas, LNG, power, petrochemicals, metals, agriculture and shipping.
S&P Global Platts is a division of S&P Global (NYSE: SPGI), which provides essential intelligence for individuals, companies and governments to make decisions with confidence. For more information, visit www.platts.com.
About Viridios Capital
Viridios Capital is a fintech developer and asset manager in the carbon markets with a specific focus on ensuring capital delivered to sustainable developments is fair compensation. It was founded in Sydney, Australia in 2019 and holds Australian Financial Services Licence 521837 and has offices in New York and Singapore.Viridios is targeting April 2021 to have its pricing model available for subscription. For more information, visit viridioscapital.com