About

Vision

Today’s carbon markets are complex and fragmented. A prevalence of independent private registries, and national-level carbon markets, combined with a lack of centralised registries between voluntary and compliance markets poses a serious challenge to ensuring maximum transparency in the market.

To future-proof the market, CAD Trust offers a decentralised, blockchain-powered digital infrastructure that connects these registries and provides public access to the information in a harmonised and user-friendly format. Our objective is to maximise the transparency of carbon credits, minimise the risk of double counting, and enhance the overall integrity of the markets.

With a decentralised and secure digital infrastructure, the services built by the public and private sector such as compliance reporting, transacting, and benchmarking can be easier and more effective.

Our Mission

We believe that transparency and accountability are vital for efficient carbon markets that drive climate action and the associated finance in public and private sectors.

Climate Action Data Trust acts in the public interest to increase transparency, safeguard against double-counting and build further confidence in the market. We leverage carbon credit data from both compliance and voluntary markets, fostering collaboration, facilitating innovation, and helping unlock the potential of carbon markets across the world.

 

Value Propositions

  • 01

    A common data taxonomy that enables reconciliation of data from registries. Through blockchain technology, it facilitates a peer-to-peer connection among decentralised registries with the aim to link, aggregate and harmonise the underlying data.

  • 02

    Provide visibility into corresponding adjustment procedures and the lifecycle of carbon offsets from issuances to retirement, which will safeguard against double counting and ease reporting requirements.

  • 03

    Surface publicly-available information on MOs and record status changes to provide information on how MOs are used.

  • 04

    Enhance transparency and trust among market participants and enable tracking of MOs and reduce double counting risk. The Climate Warehouse would not hold assets or directly facilitate.

  • 05

    Help to operationalise processes under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement such as compliance reporting and registry data model development.

Governance

The Climate Action Data Trust is an independent entity domiciled in Singapore and led by the Council and the Board, and supported by the Technical Committee, User Forum and the Secretariat.

Our Governance Model

Interim Period: Jan 2023 – Jan 2025
  • The Council

    The purpose of the Council is to set the strategic direction for the Climate Action Data Trust and oversee a work programme operationalised by the Secretariat. Members of the Council include government representatives, and major carbon registries.

    • Andrew Howard, Chair of the Council / Senior Director, Climate Policy and Strategy, Verra

      Andrew Howard is the Senior Director for Climate Policy and Strategy at Verra, where he leads strategic engagement to develop opportunities for Verra’s carbon-related standards and build greater ambition in climate action. He works with initiatives in the voluntary market as well as governmental and intergovernmental programs to shape new frameworks for private and public sector finance and to feed needs and priorities back into Verra’s work programs.

       

    • Kentaro Takahashi, Deputy Director, Climate and Energy Area, Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES)

      Mr. Takahashi joined IGES in 2009 and engaged on several projects such as capacity building programme on CDM in Asia Pacific Region, Article 6 implementation and MRV programme under the Joint Crediting Mechanism. He also has been supporting the government of Japan at UNFCCC negotiations on Article 6 as one of the delegation members.

    • Lauren Nichols, American Carbon Registry Managing Director

      Lauren oversees ACR’s operational processes and systems to ensure regulatory and technical requirements are met for the listing, verification, registration of projects and offset credit issuance as an Offset Project Registry in the California carbon market, for the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) CORSIA, and for all ACR programme requirements. She has implemented three generations of ACR registry platform development and oversees ACR’s registry operations and infrastructure development. Lauren manages the development of ACR program Standards and provides technical expertise to ACR’s development of innovative GHG emissions reduction/removal quantification methodologies.

    • Hugh Salway, Head of Markets, Gold Standard

      Hugh Salway is Head of Markets at Gold Standard, a non-profit certification standard that enables companies and activities to measure, manage and maximise impact towards climate and sustainable development goals. Hugh is responsible for Gold Standard’s market development and engagement, including its work with cross-market initiatives. Hugh previously worked for eight years in the UK Government, including roles focused on international, EU and domestic carbon market mechanisms.

    • Rui Yun Gan, Senior Manager (Global Partnerships), National Climate Change Secretariat (NCCS), Strategy Group, Prime Minister’s Office

      Rui Yun Gan is a Senior Manager (Global Partnerships) at the National Climate Change Secretariat, Strategy Group, Prime Minister’s Office. He develops policies and strategies in the areas of carbon markets and global partnerships, to facilitate efforts to mitigate emissions and harness green growth opportunities arising from climate change. Previously, he worked on carbon pricing and economic research on climate change-related issues.

    • Kishor Rajhansa, Chief Operating Officer, Global Carbon Council

      Kishor Rajhansa is a climate change, energy, and sustainability leader with a professional experience of 27 years at leadership positions in multi-national advisory, international regulatory and government organisations. Currently, Kishor is working as Chief Operating Officer at Global Carbon Council (GCC), Doha, Qatar. He is primarily responsible for operationalising the GCC, a CORSIA-approved GHG emission unit. He is the acting member of expert panel responsible for climate mitigation standards of UNFCCC (CDM Methodologies Panel).

    • Juan Pedro Searle, Head of Climate Change, Ministry of Energy of Chile

      Juan Pedro Searle has a scientific background on biochemistry. He has nearly 30 years of experience on climate change related matters in Chile, most of them dedicated to multilateral negotiations under the UNFCCC. As landmarks of this process, he has participated in the design of the Kyoto Protocol, the Marrakech Accords (in particular with regards to the CDM) and in the debate that culminated in subsequent landmarks under the UNFCCC such as the Paris Agreement. He now works in the Ministry of the Energy as Head of Climate Change.

    • Chris Shipley, Head of Global Carbon Markets at the UK’s Department for Business

      Chris is Head of Global Carbon Markets at the UK’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. He manages the UK’s input into several carbon pricing and markets programmes and works with the UK transport department on CORSIA. His team work with others in the UK on initiatives to build integrity in voluntary carbon markets, and on Article 6. He is a member of the CPLC Advisory Group and is a manager of the UK’s Kyoto Protocol Registry.

    • Sonam Tashi, Chief Planning Officer for the Ministry of Economic Affairs of Bhutan

      Sonam Tashi is the Chief Planning Officer for the Ministry of Economic Affairs of Bhutan. The ministry is responsible for the development of the trade, industry, energy and mining sector. He has led the Task Force for Doing Business Reforms in the country and policy initiatives for improving the investment climate and promoting private sector development. Sonam is also Bhutan’s chief negotiator for Article 6 (carbon markets) of the Paris Agreement and has contributed to raising the country’s interests in the emerging carbon markets.

    • Mr. El hadji Mbaye Diagne, Director General of AFRIQUE – ENERGIE – ENVIRONNEMENT (AEE)

      Mr. El hadji Mbaye Diagne is the Director General of AFRIQUE – ENERGIE – ENVIRONNEMENT (AEE) a consultancy firm in Senegal. Mr. Diagne is an engineer, senior consultant and former President of the COMNACC (Senegalese National Board on Climate Change). He is member of the Senegalese official delegation for the UNFCCC negotiations since 2000 and he is the lead coordinator for market issues. He supports many UNFCCC negotiating groups including the African Group of Negotiators (Lead Coordinator), the G77 & China (Lead Coordinator) and Least Developed Countries on issues related to “carbon markets” (KP mechanisms and Article 6 of the Paris Agreement). Mr. Diagne is a Lead author for chapter 16, Innovation,Technology development and transfer of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6).

  • Board

    The Board is an independent body consisting of the representatives of the Founding Partners. The Board will be informed by the Climate Action Data Trust’s stakeholders and will be guided and supported by various standing committees and bodies.

    • Hania Dawood, Manager, Climate Finance & Economics, Climate Change Group, The World Bank

       

    • Benedict Chia, Director General (Climate Change), National Climate Change Secretariat, Singapore

    • Federico Di Credico, Managing Director, Asia Pacific, ACT Group  / Member of the IETA Council

  • Technical Committee

    The Technical Committee comprises data and technology providers as well as market practitioners to advise on technical development and new innovative features of the CAD Trust platform.

    Current members

    István Bart

    Global Climate Director, Environmental
    Defense Fund

    Jessica Bede

    Director of Registry Operations, American Carbon Registry

    Keith Black

    Technical Director for Registry and Information Services, Gold Standard

    Rogelio Campos

    GHG Mitigation Specialist, Peru Ministry of Environment

    Juan David Duran

    CEO, EcoRegistry

    Eduardo Ferreira

    Managing Director, Latin America, Climate Impact Partners

    Richard Godfrey

    Senior Policy Advisor, Green Finance, Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA), United Kingdom

    Ken Griggs

    VP of Customer Success, Chia Network

    Andy Bose

    Senior Vice President for Market Development & Policy, Xpansiv

    Charlie Moore

    Head of Carbon & Sustainability Solutions, Chainlink Labs

    Greg Robberechts

    Carbon Assets Tracking System Manager, World Bank

    Gemma Torras Vives

    IT Officer, Climate Finance and Economics
    Unit, World Bank

    Irene Chekwoti

    Senior Climate Change Officer – Mitigation, Climate Change Department, Ministry of Water and Environment of Uganda

    Kristen Gorguinpour

    Vice President, Programs, Climate Action Reserve

    Wei Deng

    Manager, Climate Action Digitization, Global Carbon Council

    María Elisa Vollmer

    Head of Project Data, Viridios AI

    Alexandra Soezer

    Carbon Technical Advisor, UNDP

    Observer status

    Sana Lingorsky

    Lead Program Officer, Mechanisms Registries and Information Systems Unit, UNFCCC

    Arvid Rönnberg

    Programme Manager, International Climate Cooperation, Swedish Energy Agency

    Stefan Meier

    Senior Policy Advisor, Federal Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications (DETEC), Switzerland

  • User Forum

    The User Forum will comprise market practitioners and users of the data to advise on additional functionality and use. The purpose of the Forum is to act as a market sounding board for the Council and the Technical Committee for technical, policy, and business matters.

    The CAD Trust Council will approve members of the User Forum in May 2023.

     

  • Secretariat

    The purpose of the Secretariat is to draft and execute a work programme to support the Council in delivering the strategic vision for operationalising the Climate Action Data Trust.

    • Yuvaraj DINESH Babu, Executive Director

      Dinesh has over 29 years of experience in carbon markets, GHG mitigation, clean energy planning, policy development, financing, and capacity building. He previously worked as Executive Director at EY and led a The World Bank funded and State Bank of India operated 5-year solar rooftop PV program. He was also Chief of Party for a USAID-funded Partnership to Advance Clean Energy – Deployment (PACE-D) (TA) in India. Earlier, Dinesh worked as a Group Director and CEO for a Singapore firm (Asia Carbon Group) and a UK firm (The Carbon Ratings Agency), both of which were actively involved in driving carbon market initiatives.

    • Lukasz Biernacki, Communications & Marketing Lead

      Lukasz (Luka) has extensive expertise in Communications & Marketing, having spent more than 15 years helping businesses and organisations in communicating their vision through storytelling and effective engagement strategies. His professional endeavors have centered around climate change education, corporate climate action and sustainability, and green tech. In the past, Lukasz has collaborated with EU Institutions, UN agencies, NGOs, startups, and renowned international brands.

    • Terence Tan, Student Volunteer

      Terence is currently a postgraduate student at the University of California, Berkeley and the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), where he is pursuing a Master’s degree in Technology and Startup Management. With an academic background in Computer Science, Terence has specialized in the fields of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT) and has a strong passion for blockchain engineering. During his studies, he previously completed internships at Climate Impact X, Temasek, SAP AI & DBS Bank.