Scaling today’s carbon markets - a new market blueprint: report

A new blueprint for scaling voluntary carbon markets more efficiently.

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Voluntary carbon markets are growing in scale and geographic reach, but manual processes and market fragmentation continue to limit efficiency and transparency. This report examines the structural barriers to growth, the role of registries and the changes needed to support a more scalable market model.

Carbon market value

Scale

Twenty-five years after the first carbon credit trade, the market has reached commercial scale — but its operational infrastructure has not kept pace.

254 million carbon credits were transacted in 2022, underlining the volumes still being absorbed by manual processes.

Still manual today

Operations

Phone calls and emails continue to dominate core trading and issuance activity — increasing cost, risk and constraints on scale.

The operating model remains largely manual and has not kept pace with the market’s commercial ambition.

Registries lead change

Infrastructure

Registries are viewed as central to advancing standardisation, automation and transparency — the three conditions the market needs to scale credibly.

Without registry reform, improvements elsewhere in the chain will remain fragmented and commercially limited.

Voluntary carbon markets are becoming more important to climate strategy, but their ability to scale remains constrained by operational inefficiency, fragmentation and limited standardisation. As participation expands, the challenge is to build market structure that can support greater volume, transparency and trust.

What is stopping voluntary carbon markets from scaling more effectively? What changes in infrastructure, process and governance are needed to support a more efficient and credible market?

The report draws on a global survey of 135 industry leaders to examine the structural challenges facing voluntary carbon markets and the steps needed to unlock broader growth. It explores price transparency, market fragmentation, the diversity of carbon credit use cases and the role of registries and technology in improving standardisation and scalability.

The research, produced in partnership with Nasdaq, highlights:

Voluntary carbon markets reached a global value of US dollar (USD) 1.9 billion in 2022 across 98 countries

94% of processes remain manual: most of the current trade cycle still relies on manual workflows, increasing cost, risk and constraints on scale

66% see registries as critical: respondents view registries as the most important enabler of market improvement, particularly in standardisation, automation and transparency