Why hasn’t everybody adopted common reporting and disclosure standards based on independent third-party engineering reporting?

In many ways the industry has already begun to move in that direction, says Peter Schriber, vice president, market development for Xpansiv. The company offers various certifications through connected bodies such as the Verified Carbon Standard and American Carbon Registry. Until now, the emissions reductions efforts of companies like Birchcliff have been internally audited by its own engineers, but Xpansiv aims to replace that with verifiable data that can be traded on its digital platforms. And while auditing is an important part of the Xpansiv platform, it takes it one step further to make it “tradable” thus increasing its inherent value, both for producers and consumers.

“We are pushing the envelope using technology to create more integrity to the market through continuous monitoring (bottom up and top down), including chemical analysis, production accounting, receipts, nominations, site equipment profiles etc. to get a molecular mass balance of the operations continuously,” Schriber explains. “It’s data intensive, in the end it’s all about the numbers but you also need to ask yourself as a consumer: How do you know that what you paid for is in fact produced sustainably”?