Prometheum Carbon said a pilot carbon offsets trading scheme has demonstrated that South Africa could implement such a program.
The three-year program, funded by the U.K. government, was conducted in collaboration with the Johannesburg Stock Exchange , the JSE’s commodities registry Silocerts and the registry’s technology provider Done Technologies.
The program is aimed at studying the applicability of existing South African commercial and financial infrastructure for use as a carbon trading platform. The demonstration consisted of performing actual trades of carbon credits on an over-the-counter basis from a wide variety of international standards such as the clean development mechanism , which can include projects such as hydropower, wind energy and industrial efficiency improvements.
“These trades were then mirrored in a test environment on the electronic platforms of the JSE and Silocerts,” said Prometheum Carbon . “The structure of the JSE commodities market… is 100% applicable to the trade of carbon offset credits. The proposed platform to trade carbon offset credits, relying on existing technology and market structure, can be integrated with the JSE’s existing systems.”