By Nora Buli
OSLO (Reuters) - Financial services company Nasdaq and Finnish state-owned utility Fortum have joined forces to develop a trading platform for carbon removal credits, they said on Tuesday.
Various forms of carbon trading have gained traction as tackling climate change has become urgent and industry is under pressure to cut or offset its emissions by buying into carbon reduction schemes, such as tree planting or emissions sequestration.
Backed by Fortum, Puro.earth was founded in 2019 and offers verifiable and tradable carbon removal credits on an open, online platform, with existing corporate clients including Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), the companies said.
Puro.earth's CO2 Removal Certificates (CORCs) are based on technologies for long-term carbon removal, such as storing carbon in a solid structures made from industrial waste.
This allows companies to reduce their carbon footprint, in some cases to less than zero.
Nasdaq is taking a majority stake in the Puro.earth platform for an undisclosed sum, they said.
"The partnership with Puro.earth will provide our global network of corporate clients access to a unique marketplace for carbon removal and will allow Puro.earth to scale its platform through the Nasdaq network and technology platform," Bjoern Sibbern, Executive Vice President and President of European Markets at Nasdaq, said.
Puro.earth seeks to help its customers reach ambitious emissions goals, Chief Executive Antti Vihavainen said.
Carbon offset credits are traded in small, bilateral and typically project-specific deals but exchanges are increasingly exploring opportunities to standardise trading.
Offsets are voluntary initiatives, differing from mandatory emission trading systems set up as policy tools to help cut emissions by putting a price on carbon dioxide emissions. Here, participating companies are required to buy and render certificates for all or a share of their carbon dioxide emissions.