A new carbon market has been introduced by the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) in South Africa, enabling local participants to purchase and trade renewable energy certificates and carbon credits.

The JSE claims that the market was introduced in association with Xpansiv, a provider of infrastructure for international environmental markets operating under the name JSE Ventures, a distinct legal organization. Environmental market technology from Xpansiv includes systems for portfolio management, market data, and registry infrastructure.

Customers will be able to progress toward their sustainability objectives in the new market since they will have complete access to the worldwide Xpansiv platform’s features. This has functionalities for:

Spot trading
Auctions
Requests for quotes

for both carbon offsets and renewable energy certificates.

“We saw this as an opportunity to bring an innovative solution to our market participants while positioning South Africa as a significant contributor to decarbonization,” says Leila Fourie, CEO of JSE Group. “There is a heightened global focus on carbon markets.”

“John Melby, CEO of Xpansiv, said, “Partnering with leaders like the JSE to enable new marketplaces to scale the energy transition and efficiently support climate finance is an exciting aspect of operating the global environmental markets infrastructure.”

“As Africa steps up its global climate ambition, we look forward to working with the outstanding JSE team to quickly deliver a world-class carbon and renewable energy marketplace in Africa and to enable new regional products and initiatives to thrive.”

The JSE reports that South Africa is the world’s 12th largest carbon emitter and that demand for carbon credits is rising.

A South African voluntary carbon market will:

Accelerate the creation of carbon offset projects
Help meet the demand for credits by emitters seeking to offset their emissions
Increase investment interest in the country, and
Contribute meaningfully to helping grow the economy and improve sustainability practices

“Market participants who have made explicit commitments to sustainability, especially net-zero, are well-suited for this endeavor. Fourie continues, “We’re excited to interact with them on the platform’s array of environmental products.

“Our goal is to advance transparency in the dynamic field of environmental investing. In the process, we want to expedite possible financing sources for these projects. Fourie ends.

In 2020, the JSE entered into an agreement with GlobaCap, a prominent player in the automation of private capital markets, to introduce a decentralized private placement platform intended for use in infrastructure projects throughout Africa.

A SME financing market would also be established in South Africa as a result of the agreement. Globacap claims that this platform would serve as a crowdfunding source for SMEs trying to generate money in a more intimate setting.

About Xpansiv

In order to meet the increasing demand for assurance and responsibility on climate action and sustainability performance worldwide, stakeholders can provide transparent, credible, and auditable environmental claims through the use of Xpansiv’s® rules-based marketplaces and infrastructure.

By creating standardized assets that mimic tangible goods, Xpansiv has made it possible for registered environmental performance claims to be liquidated on the market. Consensus-built environmental performance and origin qualities that are required to value and transact claims across the fuels value chain on immutable ledgers are examples of standardized assets. The environmental performance claims are supported by verifiable, factual data that can be tracked back to their original source.