Henrik Hasselknippe, head of markets at carbon exchange Xpansiv, said a “culture of transparency” has evolved.​ ​“For example, the registries that issue credits make full project documentation available on their websites. In addition, they often share the name of the owners that ultimately claim the credits, providing an end-to-end view of the provenance, transfer, and retirement of a given carbon credit. That level of transparency is rare in any market.

“In addition, many companies provide detailed data on their carbon credit use in corporate sustainability reports. And uniform disclosure standards contemplated in current regulatory proposals would bring a level of uniformity to reporting, which—done properly—would be a welcome development, from our perspective.”

Another vital factor, Hasselknippe added, that has improved trust, scale and liquidity in the VCMs was the launch of the Global Emissions Offset suite of standardised contracts.​ ​“The establishment of these kinds of benchmarks is a key step in the evolution of any market​.”