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Voluntary Market
Voluntary markets have emerged alongside the regulated market for individuals, companies or institutions that are not subject to mandatory reductions but wish to voluntarily offset their carbon footprints.
Projects that reduce GHG emissions can earn Voluntary Emission Reductions (VER) that can then be sold on voluntary carbon markets. VERs are quite similar to CERs but voluntary markets can be attractive to project developers for the following reasons:
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The project is located in a country that has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol. |
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The project is located in a country that does not have appropriate support for CDM project development. |
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The project is too small or does not have the financial resources to cover an expensive CDM development process.
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The project’s methodology or the technology implemented is not registered under the Kyoto Protocol. |
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Voluntary markets are less controlled and organized than the regulated market. When it comes to VERs there is a great variety of types, qualities and prices. From this point of view, the standards that guarantee the origin of VERs are very important. |
Even though several voluntary markets have been created in the last years and they are growing fast, volumes of carbon credits traded on voluntary markets have been very small compared to on the regulated market.
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