Different Seats at the Table, One Market to Build

Before anyone can buy an environmental asset, like a carbon credit, several institutions have to agree on what it is. A standard sets what the asset claims. A registry records it. The law of the country it comes from says who owns it and, increasingly, whether it can be transferred across borders. Shared data determines whether it can be compared with anything else. An exchange puts a price on it.

Each of those institutions plays a different role in the chain an asset moves along. Climate Week brings all of them to New York, so last Wednesday, we put them at the same table: registries, exchanges, data standards, and ratings companies.

We brought one question to the evening: what does the person across the table need from you?

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Around the table

Verra writes standards for the voluntary carbon market, approves the methodologies projects follow, and issues credits under its program. What Verra recognizes often sets the terms for everyone downstream.

Climate Compliance 2050 works where carbon markets meet the law. A credit a standard recognizes still needs the law to say who owns it. Under Article 6, it also needs a government to authorize its transfer to another country.

Sylvera rates carbon credits, so buyers can judge the quality of what they're funding before they commit.

"Scaling carbon markets requires buyers to understand quality and have confidence in the information behind each credit. Independent ratings and trusted registry infrastructure play complementary roles in that effort. Connecting those pieces helps capital find its way to high-quality projects."
Allister Furey, Co-founder and CEO, Sylvera

Abaxx runs an exchange where environmental assets are priced and traded. It comes later in an asset's life, and depends on everything before it holding up.

"Environmental markets work when policy, legal frameworks, technological infrastructure, and capital are designed to interconnect as a coherent interoperable system. Trusted infrastructure creates the common ground institutions need to understand their roles, manage risk, and translate ambition into action. The time for implementation is now."
Ludovino Lopes, CEO and Chairman, Climate Compliance 2050

What every seat needs

A standard can't price a credit, and an exchange can't certify one. No seat at the table can do another's job, and everyone depends on the others doing theirs. Whatever the seat, the need underneath is the same: to know what an asset represents, trust the information behind it, and see it hold up as it moves to the next institution.

Every institution at that table keeps its own rules, and it should. The market works when the next one can read those rules correctly and rely on what they produce.

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Where Alcove fits

Each handoff along that chain is a place where an asset's record can be re-entered, re-checked, or read differently by whoever receives it. Our part is the layer underneath those handoffs. A program runs its review and issuance on Alcove under its own rules, and the result is one record of each asset, run once and read the same way by the systems that connect to it. That's the reference layer we're building for environmental and energy transition markets. We don't write standards, set prices, or decide what counts.

A record made at one seat has to hold up at every other. Tables like this one are how we learn what that takes.

Last week, Joe Varnas wrote about why shared standards are only the beginning. This table was a good reminder of who that work is for. If your work sits anywhere along this chain, I'd love to hear what you need from the others.