Carbon Market Watch (CMW), a not-for-profit watchdog, has released its latest report, ‘Due South, Geographic Disparity of Project Actors in the Voluntary Carbon Market,’ which has found a “large discrepancy” between where carbon projects are located and the location where the majority of companies involved in these projects are based.
The paper examined a sample of 30 projects across the world and a second sample of 39 projects focused on the African continent and found companies involved in these projects are predominantly based in rich countries.
In the global sample, it was found that only 13 per cent of the projects were located in countries with ‘very high human development’ levels, yet over half of the companies involved in these projects were based in ‘highly developed’ countries.
In its African sample, this was even higher, with more than 62 per cent of the companies originating from countries with ‘very high human development.”
Moreover, less than 28 per cent of companies involved in projects in Africa were found to be actually based in an African country.
“There is no evidence to support the claim that despite being headquartered in affluent countries, companies are passing on an appropriate share of revenues to the projects to finance implementation and generate local benefits,” the report reads.
According to the report, the findings reinforce the need to improve transparency around financial flows in the Voluntary Carbon Market (VCM).
For the full report, head here.