Voluntary carbon markets’ growth challenges

Conference participants voice concerns over public perception and difficulties integrating carbon instruments into broad investment portfolios

The 20th anniversary of the US’ biggest carbon conference, North America Carbon World, was held in the last week of March. Participants celebrated the carbon offset industry’s growth from its early days but laid bare some of the challenges, to which there are no easy solutions, as it looks forward. The industry takes as an article of faith that carbon offsets should (and must) grow dramatically over the next decade. One strong indicator is the commitment from 4,750 companies to decarbonise in line with guidelines set by the independent Science Based Targets initiative. Conference participants also expressed the view that more disclosure (presumably Securities & Exchange Commission mandat