Carbon Markets

We assess the outlook for key compliance markets around the world and the voluntary offset market, including the rapidly expanding field of carbon removals.

Carbon pricing includes the use of carbon taxes, emissions trading systems and crediting mechanisms to reduce emissions. Various schemes have been in operation since the early 2000s but as the impacts of climate change start to bite, both the impact and coverage of carbon pricing throughout the world is rising quickly. For instance, the EU ETS price has risen dramatically over the past few years, and currently over 40 countries and more than 20 cities, states and provinces use carbon pricing mechanisms, with more planning to implement them in the future.

Compliance markets

AFRY covers the evolution of several mature and emerging compliance markets around the world, providing insights and price projections for:

EU ETS
China
key markets in North America (WCI, RGGI)
the outlook for emerging markets such as Australia.

These outlooks can be delivered on their own or combined with our insights from our power market modelling to provide a consistent outlook as to how the power and industrial sectors will change in the energy transition.

Voluntary offset market and carbon removals

In addition to the government-led schemes, many corporations have committed to net-zero, and are looking to the voluntary offset market to help support their decarbonisation journey. AFRY is at the forefront of the development of this market, having contributed to the Taskforce for Scaling Voluntary Carbon Markets (TSVCM) and recently investigating the cost and scale of carbon removal deployment to 2030.

We can provide unparalleled insights to the development of these markets, and the technologies therein. Coupled with our outlook on the cost of hydrogen and synthetic fuels essential for the transition to net-zero, we can provide a one-stop-shop regarding the cost of the energy transition.

We can also help with procurement for removal offsets and renewable energy, having advised leading global brands on securing wind and solar PPAs throughout the world. Through Smart Forestry, we can also support the verification of carbon stocks in forestry, and in other rapidly growing technologies like BECCS and DACCS.

Internal carbon prices

There has been an 80% increase in the number of companies planning or using an internal carbon price in just five years (source: CDP). Coupled with our services in compliance and voluntary carbon markets, low-carbon/carbon negative procurement, we also can offer clients advice on their own internal carbon pricing schemes. Together with our broader climate change and sustainability services we can provide an end-to-end suite of decarbonisation from target setting, life cycle analysis, through to assessing climate risk and reporting Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).