Six markets, one test: can the tonne be traced?

Australia runs one of the most tightly governed carbon schemes in the world. ACCUs are issued by the Clean Energy Regulator, and demand is anchored by the reformed Safeguard Mechanism, which forces the country's largest industrial emitters to cut against declining baselines each year.

This is where our group’s project work is concentrated: quantifying abatement, engaging the regulator's framework, and certifying credits from real projects — solar, waste recovery, demand reduction. It is the market our group knows from the inside, not from a terminal.

A record 21.7 million ACCUs were issued in 2025, up around 15% on 2024, with compliance buyers now the dominant source of demand. Source: Clean Energy Regulator, Quarterly Carbon Market Report, December quarter 2025.

Britain's voluntary market runs on two government-backed standards: the Woodland Carbon Code, at version 3.0 since 1 August 2025, and its sister Peatland Code. UK-grown units appeal to British buyers who want their offsetting visible, local and government-assured.

On the compliance side, the UK ETS caps power, industry and aviation, and brought maritime into scope from 1 July 2026. We help UK organisations work out which side of that line they sit on, and source units accordingly.

The Woodland Carbon Code moved to version 3.0 on 1 August 2025, with clarifications re-issued in January 2026. Projects already in development could validate under v2.2 until 30 June 2026.

The United States hosts the deepest pool of voluntary credits anywhere: projects verified under Verra's VCS, Gold Standard, the American Carbon Registry and the Climate Action Reserve. Quality varies enormously — which is exactly why brokered access with document-first screening matters more here than in any other market.

Compliance demand runs through California's Cap-and-Invest programme — renamed and extended to 2045 in September 2025 — and the RGGI power-sector market in the northeast. Aviation demand under CORSIA becomes mandatory from 2027 for most ICAO states, with least-developed countries, small island states and small aviation markets exempt. Eligible supply is expected to tighten.

We screen US registry credits project by project. A registry listing is a starting point, not a verdict.

The EU ETS is the world's first major carbon compliance market and the largest by traded value. European reporting duties under CSRD were narrowed by the 2026 Omnibus package, but the companies still in scope are being pulled into carbon accounting for the first time. Many discover they need both measurement and credits in the same year.

Our French arm, Carbone Zéro, delivers bilan carbone assessments and the ADEME labellisation pathway for French organisations. It handles measurement and Scope 1–3 reporting under the national framework, working to the same quantification protocol as the rest of the group.

The EU ETS covers roughly 40% of the bloc's emissions, and CBAM's definitive regime began on 1 January 2026: 2026 imports carry the liability, certificates become purchasable from February 2027, and the first surrender is due by 30 September 2027.

New Zealand has run a national ETS since 2008, one of the world's longest, with forestry at its core. For buyers wanting exposure to a mature, single-jurisdiction scheme in the Asia-Pacific, NZUs are a clean instrument with a long price history.

NZUs are surrenderable only inside the New Zealand scheme. They cannot be used against an Australian Safeguard obligation or a UK ETS one, so treat them as exposure to that market, not as a substitute for either.

Article 6 of the Paris Agreement is turning carbon into a country-to-country market: governments trading mitigation outcomes directly, with corresponding adjustments to keep the accounting honest. The first bilateral deals are done; the 6.4 crediting mechanism is standing up its pipeline.

We track this market because it will reshape all the others. Compliance-grade international units will compete with today's voluntary supply. When clients want early positioning, we advise on what's real now versus what's still a press release.

Our rule for emerging markets is the same as for established ones: no traceable paper, no trade.