IETA Launches Task Group on Integrity in Digital Climate Markets

GENEVA, 20 January – The IETA Governing Council today announced the formation of a Task Group to examine the new trends in digital carbon markets and recommend steps to ensure integrity in this growing field. The group will be led by the IETA Council Chair Lisa DeMarco.

“Digital innovations offer powerful new approaches to carbon market design and performance, and we are eager to explore the expansion of their proper use,” said Dirk Forrister, President and CEO of IETA.

Digital tools hold the potential to revolutionise monitoring, reporting and verification, and they offer new means for highly secure, transparent and globally accessible registry infrastructure. There are also innovations in asset formation, such as issuing carbon credits in the form of digital credits or native tokens secured on a public blockchain.

“Like any aspect of carbon markets, the efficacy of digital tools depends on their ability to engender broad public and market confidence, rooted in high environmental integrity,” Forrister said.

“A wide spectrum of different types of digital assets are beginning to trade in voluntary markets, and we know that many digital platforms, market operators and service providers are interested in following high integrity principles and practices, similar to those in the ICROA Code of Best Practice.”

The IETA Council will organise IETA’s new work on digital market issues, along with guidance for members and other market practitioners on digital market integrity.

It will undertake a review of market developments and make recommendations for principles of best practice in the development and use of digital markets and assets. The process will involve inputs from experts within the IETA membership and the wider carbon market community.

More information will be made available in a webinar (date to be confirmed) in February 2022.