• CIX completes pilot auction of a curated portfolio to help scale global voluntary carbon market
• 19 global buyers across various industries supported the pilot auction event
• 170,000 tonnes of carbon credits transacted as part of a curated portfolio of eight natural climate solution (NCS) projects¹
• The portfolio gives buyers diversified exposure to a global selection of quality projects with high environmental and social impact
• CIX will host regular auctions in early 2022

Singapore, 1 November 2021 – Global carbon credit exchange and marketplace Climate Impact X (CIX) today announces that it has completed a pilot auction of a portfolio of high-quality carbon credits². The auction successfully cleared 170,000 carbon credits from eight recognised NCS projects curated to form a diversified portfolio, at USD 8.00 per tonne. Each of the NCS projects, spanning reforestation and avoided deforestation initiatives – across Africa, Asia and Latin America – demonstrate the high-performance of carbon sequestration and high levels of verified co-benefits, such as supporting biodiversity, along with social and economic development in local communities.

This pilot auction is an opportunity for Singapore-based CIX to demonstrate a new method for scaling the voluntary carbon market³. By curating supply into a portfolio, CIX simplifies the buying experience; by leveraging an auction, CIX offers an efficient and competitive price discovery mechanism that establishes a fair market price for both buyers and sellers.

The projects also help support a broad base of verified co-benefits and delivery against UN Sustainable Development Goals. The eight projects collectively support more than 55,000 jobs, improve education for more than 35,000 students, help fund 60 medical facilities and infrastructure projects; plus efforts to protect over 250 threatened species.

The portfolio auction is the first-of-its-kind in the global voluntary carbon market. By delivering greater transparency, efficiency and risk mitigation for buyers, the pilot auction supports the scaling of the voluntary carbon market, as advocated by the Taskforce on Scaling Voluntary Carbon Markets (TSVCM).

“The Pilot Auction was great proof of the desire of both buyers and sellers to find each other through a trusted market mechanism. It was also robust demonstration that an auctioning platform works, and that high-quality carbon credits can command better value. We believe that this is an important step in the journey towards scaling the voluntary carbon market,” said Piyush Gupta, CEO of DBS Bank.

CIX’s pilot auction attracted strong interest from many global companies, and the final group of buyers represent different industry segments and active market participants eager to grow the voluntary carbon market⁴ : Of the group of buyers, DBS Bank, Singapore Exchange, Standard Chartered and Temasek, being co-investors of CIX, purchased the carbon credits at auction clearing price instead of participating in the auction⁴.

The other companies include⁵ :

“We are grateful for the support we saw through this pilot auction. We saw conviction from buyers and sellers for high quality carbon credits and specifically the enthusiasm for natural climate solutions. Nature is ‘too big to fail’,” said Mikkel Larsen, Interim CEO of Climate Impact X.

“Standard Chartered is pleased to have been a part of CIX’s pilot auction. Through its focus on high quality projects and transparent pricing, the CIX auction marks a critical first step in unlocking the billions in funding needed to achieve our shared climate goals. With the Taskforce on Scaling Voluntary Carbon Markets’ Core Carbon Principles progressing well, work towards delivering a high-quality voluntary carbon market is accelerating and CIX is ready to help this market deliver on its full potential in the fight against climate change,” said Bill Winters, Group Chief Executive, Standard Chartered.

Going forward, CIX will continue to collaborate with an ecosystem of technology partners who share its vision of building a scalable, trusted and high-quality voluntary carbon market. This includes Sylvera which applies machine learning to satellite data and deep methodological analysis to evaluate projects; with Viridios AI to provide an independent assessment of spot market value of the portfolio; and with platform provider NovaFori to develop the auction technology.

CIX will leverage the expertise and experience from this pilot to launch regular auctions that will be held in early 2022.

Media contacts:

EMEA – Joe Riley, joe.riley@hkstrategies.com & +44 7429 106734
Asia – Selena Sheikh, selena.sheikh@hkstrategies.com & +65 9746 8519

Notes to Editor:

1. Natural Climate Solutions (NCS) involve protection and restoration of natural ecosystems such as forests, wetlands and mangroves. NCS are cost effective and provide significant benefits by supporting biodiversity and generating income for local communities.
2. A carbon credit is a certificate that represents an independently verified reduction of one metric tonne of CO2 emission.
3. Although auctions of portfolios are novel in the voluntary carbon market, an auction is a tried-and-tested mechanism for buyers in compliance carbon markets, as well as in commodity and financial retail markets more broadly, to transact complex products in an efficient and effective manner. This pilot auction was designed as a multi-round, sealed bid auction. Aggregated price information from each round was shared with participants to help them calibrate their bids. This pilot auction was also designed to have multiple winners as a distributive outcome is a better reflection of aggregate demand. The auction clearing price in this way reflected current ‘fair market’ value, as opposed to simply the highest price a single buyer is willing to pay. In the end, total aggregate demand exceeded the volume made available by CIX, and the auction cleared at USD 8.00/tonne.
4. Our investors did not participate in the pilot auction. Instead, they placed a limit order ahead of the auction so that if the clearing price was not higher than their limit price, they would purchase the pre- agreed amount of carbon credits at the clearing price. This ensures that their orders did not have any commercial impact on the outcomes of the pilot auction.
5. In addition to those listed, two buyers opted to remain confidential.