使用碳信用时透明度为王

Key findings Disclosure of carbon credit use is a complicated yet important aspect of corporate reporting as it enablesstakeholders to assess a company’s net environmental impact, transition planning and risk exposure.Rates of disclosure are already higher than is often assumed, and transparency is set to improve further, drivenby new disclosure standards and/or regulations.Variations in rules across jurisdictions can add complexity and an extra reporting burden. Dissimilar informationmay also make it harder for investors to make decisions and report on credit use across their portfolio. The disclosure of carbon credit use is becoming increasingly important for both companies and investors — but it isalso becoming increasingly complicated. The data takes considerable effort to collect and dissect, and there is a lackof standardization in the format and detail of disclosures.The good news is that, despite these complications,disclosure levels are relatively high. Analysis by MSCI Carbon Markets shows that most companies using carboncredits disclose how many credits they are using — which is not surprising given that one of the aims behind theiruse is to improve a company's reputation. Such disclosure allows investors and other stakeholders to assess thecredibility of a company's credit-related claims, as well as their climate targets, transition plans and risk exposuresmore broadly.It also helps avoid the same emissions being compensated twice by two companies within the samevalue chain, or by investors looking to do so for their portfolio — something that might become important if the useof carbon credits towards Scope 3 emissionsbecomes more widespread. Most notably, the Science Based Targetsinitiative (SBTi) plans to publish a discussion paper in July exploring such a use case.As shown in the exhibit below,some 85% of carbon credits retired since 2018 were attributable to the company using them. Disclosure rates arecurrently much lower for 2023 due to delays in corporate reporting cycles, but we anticipate this will rise to the90%-plus levels seen in recent years once such reporting is complete.When looking at the types of credits used,however, the level of information disclosed falls. Only around half the market reveals the names (and/or unique IDs)of the projects that have generated the carbon credits they are using. In these cases, extensive details on theunderlying project can be found on the crediting registry's website, or via a platform such as MSCI Carbon Markets,including its location, credit methodology and third-party verification checks. Such depth of disclosure is morecomprehensive than several other areas of corporate reporting — such as a company's own emissions or itscountry-by-country breakdown of employees, taxation or even revenues.[1] Annual carbon-credit retirements by retiree (MtCO2e) The push for transparency Given the above, corporate reporting on carbon credits may not be as lacking in transparency today as commonlyassumed — and it stands to get a lot more transparent and consistent.Registries are an important source ofdisclosure on the use of carbon credits. To comply with the eligibility criteria of the newly created Integrity Councilfor the Voluntary Carbon Market's (ICVCM) Core Carbon Principles (CCPs), registries must require account holdersto identify the entity on whose behalf a carbon credit is retired. The ICVCM only requires such information to bedisclosed to the registry, not publicly, but this new requirement could lead to higher disclosure rates as this isincreasingly seen as good practice.An equally important source of disclosure is company reporting, which has, todate, largely been made on a voluntary basis. The use of credits was a notable gap in the Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) disclosure framework when it was finalized in 2017. It has since, however,become common in most new disclosure standards, both regulatory and voluntary.Regulators in many jurisdictionshave begun developing disclosure rules for companies based on recommendations by the InternationalSustainability Standards Board (ISSB), and many others have signalled that they will do the same. The U.K. plans tointegrate the framework developed by the Transition Plan Taskforce (TPT) into its reporting requirements,something that other jurisdictions may follow. Among voluntary standards, almost all now require a company todisclose the carbon credits it is using, or plans to use, if it wishes to make a credit-related claim. As a result, thenumber of companies disclosing details on their credit use is set to increase.Unfortunately, knowing what todisclose, in what jurisdiction and to what level of detail, is not a simple matter. The rules are being set in differentways and at different speeds across major markets. These differences may increase reporting burdens forcompanies, particularly for multinational companies subject to more than one rule, and that dissimilar information