Exclusive interview with Heather McEwan, Regional Representative: Africa and the Middle East, Verra. Heather is a speaker at the upcoming Carbon Markets Africa Summit in Johannesburg, taking place 21–23 October.

Q: Thank you for joining us today. Let’s start with some background on you and your role at Verra.

Good morning, thanks very much for allowing me to participate. My name is Heather from Verra. Sounds like a joke, but it’s true. So I’ve been at Verra for 4.5 going on 5 years now, and what I really like is the impact that we have. I’ve changed roles through Verra over the last 5 years. I started off as the manager for South Africa, that was just after the 2019 carbon tax, then moved into Africa, and then eventually the Middle East. I’m happy in that role because I was born in Zimbabwe, so they call me the Gwelo girl. Gwelo was the little town that I was born in. And the Middle East, I lived in Kuwait for 10 years, so I have some understanding of the Middle East. My current role is assisting project developers and, most recently, governments to understand and utilise the Verra programmes and standards.

The Voluntary Carbon Standard is our flagship standard, and we also have a plastics and an SD VISta standard. On the back of the carbon standard where you get a credit for removing a ton of carbon out of the environment, you can also get a plastic credit, because it’s a very similar process. We have a methodology, and you can get plastics credits. Interestingly enough, we were in Senegal 3 weeks ago with Mandy Rambharos, our CEO who you might know, she’s South African. She actually purchased one of those little cell phone desk stands that you can put your phone on. The gentleman that made that particular recycled phone stand actually appeared in the impact video that Verra made on that particular project. So we kind of call that “total recycling” and we did have a smile about it.

The SD VISta programme allows us to measure projects against the 17 United Nations Sustainability Goals. And the United Nations Sustainability Goals were made for countries. Why is it important for projects? It’s important because someone from the Global North who sits in the ESG department and he’s (or she) is having to buy carbon credits, but he also is tasked with, for example, water, so you can go and have a look at our carbon credits and see, for example, which credits contribute to water or as another example for women’s health. Therefore, the SD VISta programme is also key for us.

So, yes, I’m very happy at Verra and in my role as it’s changed and evolved over time.

Q: Verra is a widely used voluntary carbon market standard. There have been challenges in this sector regarding transparency and fairness. Would you say we have turned a corner?

Yes, there have been challenges. And based on these challenges of transparency and fairness, I would say absolutely we’ve turned the corner. And I think we’ve turned the corner forever. So before I explain this, and my reasoning for saying that with such strength and belief behind it, we need to note there are always good actors and bad actors in a market. Unfortunately, the carbon market is exactly the same- with good and bad actors. What we need to do is manage the negative perceptions that are out there. And unfortunately, that’s like trying to nail jelly to a ceiling. So we need to start talking about positive narratives and the positive impact that we do have.

Going back to the question, I think that there are a couple of things that have been done regarding transparency and fairness, both internally within Verra and externally in the industry and market itself. So internally within Verra, we have done a number of things. We have digitised the process. So if you submit a document, for example, initially, we’d have to get all the documents and we do an accuracy and a review check and that would take 10 days.

Now we have a project hub. You submit your documents automatically. It does the calculations for you because it has a carbon calculator inside of it. So therefore, we can assess and process those projects very quickly so that 10 days is lost in terms of the cycle because it’s now an automatic process. So in terms of digitisation, we are processing documents much quicker through the project hub. And Justin Wheler, who’s our director of the programme management team, tells me that 95% of our SLAs are being met.

SLAs are the service level agreements. The service level agreement says for example that we will take 10 days to do an accuracy review, 20 days to do a registration review, a validation or looking at a monitoring report. The 5% that we’re not achieving are the more complicated kind of projects that we have. So that’s very positive, and there’s a risk-based approach that they are using in that project cycle.

I think the most exciting thing for me is that Verra has teamed up with the Hedera Foundation. This was announced in Senegal where they had digitised not only the submission of projects and the methodologies, but also the collection of data. In the field, what we will do is we will accelerate the transparency, auditability and integrity of the methodologies. So in Senegal, we literally went into a mangrove where there was a signpost that had a QR code on it, and the community could scan the QR code on their phone.

What would happen is that they would then submit the data; and the data could be that they’ve done for example a salinity test in their 25 by 25 meter quadrant. They could then submit the height of those plants, the little mangrove plants that have grown there, and how many had survived for mortality rates. And that information can come live back into our project hub, which means that in theory, issuances could happen quicker. So a lot of work has been done on our side to improve transparency, to approve accountability, fairness and to involve communities.

That said, I also said that the industry is changing, and the industry itself has, for example, bodies like the ICVCM. They have developed core carbon principles and all the standards have to apply to them to be able to apply their core carbon principles to add integrity to our credits. We also have the VCMI, which is looking at the buyer side and assisting buyers in looking at projects and what they can do and announce with their credits. Then we have the ratings agencies as well. So the ratings agencies, for example, rate a project A, AA, B, BB, C, which is something the financial world understands. This allows buyers to be able to know what the integrity is and to kind of look at the transparency and fairness involved in that project. So, I think a lot of work has been done. In summary, we’ve turned the corner, and we’re looking for positive buy signals now on the demand side.

Q: Please tell us more about the Verra verifications and the different methodologies used?

Talking about various verifications and the different methodologies, very simply, I think if people are familiar with ISO standards, so in ISO standards you had ISO 9000, which was a quality standard, you had ISO 14000, which is the environmental standards, and then more recently the 18000 and 50000, which are the energy standards. Verra is no different in that we have created a standard document, it’s short, like the ISO standards are that you have to pay thousands of rands for. And it basically is a guidance document.

So it says in there, for example, thou shalt have a management system in place. Thou shalt allocate a management representative. You shall do regular audits. The Verra standard is no different to that. It is based on ISO principles. And the standard document will explain to you and set out the principles that you should follow for your particular carbon project that you are setting up.

How does it link to methodologies? Underneath the standards document are methodologies, and the methodologies are the recipe almost for how you do those greenhouse gas calculations. And I’ll give you a very simple example. We all as housewives and people in our homes send rubbish out on a Monday morning, whatever day your rubbish is collected, and it goes to a municipal tip. The municipal tip basically generates methane and methane goes into the atmosphere. Methane is not a great greenhouse gas for us to be accounting for. So how do you deal with that? Municipalities would, for example, put a lid over that tip or that waste site. But remember, that’s like a pressure cooker; so if you’ve got the methane developing underneath and that exploded, there would obviously be a problem.

So you may have to have a pipe which allows some of the methane to flow to a collection point and you maybe would flare some of that methane. Then you would have a burning or flare rate. At the same time, you might have pipes underneath that particular cap and they would be sucking the methane to the side of the plant. So there’s a flow rate through those pipes. At the plant, you might be using Eskom power, which is not great in terms of its greenhouse gas emissions, so there are kilowatt hours used where you are converting that methane into another form of energy.

Assume that energy was then distributed via trucks from that site to another source, you’ve got kilometers driven. So the methodology is basically the recipe that we use to calculate the greenhouse gas emissions. And in this case, it consists of a flare rate, a flow rate, kilometers driven and kilowatt hours. And that recipe is no secret, anybody could do that. But the inputs and the numbers that you use vary from Durban to Cape Town to Johannesburg or even to Gqeberha where I live. So that’s what we mean by the methodologies. Verra has a number of methodologies. We have maybe 50 methodologies and a higher number of methodologies that are coming into Verra to be assessed and approved, which I think is a healthy sign for the market.

So that’s really how the verification programme works in terms of the standard and the methodologies. A project would be based on the methodology, submit their documentation, and then we would assess that using a third party auditor so that we know that actually what they’re proposing on the ground actually happens on the ground and it is validated. In other words, we check the predictions going forward into the future, and then we would go to site to go and check that that actually happened called verification and then issue the credits accordingly on our registry. So it’s a complex process. It can take 2–3 years. It can take six months, depending on what the project is. But I’m happy to help anyone if they have any questions on that.

Q: You are working in a system that is constantly evolving and changing. There must be pros and cons to that.

Yes, working in a constantly evolving and changing system. All I say is, thank goodness we’re constantly evolving, and we’re still not selling horse whips. Remember that old business school model teachings where Henry Ford was selling the horseless carriage and people selling horse whips were kind of going to go out of business? So I think it’s a good thing that there’s change. That said, I do remember at school reading a book, I can even remember it was orange, by Alvin Toffler called Change. In that book, what he said was that change is normal. It’s the rate of change that we need to deal with. So even in the last 2 weeks, I think we have seen that. A friend of mine was in London, and he was thinking about whether he could fly back to the Middle East. But overnight, there could be a ceasefire or not. Flights were cancelled. Flights were open again. So our world changes really, really rapidly these days.

In terms of a constantly evolving and changing system, I use the analogy of a system of cogs. I am a mom, but when my twin girls were younger, we had an early learning toy that consisted of eight cogs, and each is fridge magnet and was stuck on the fridge that the kids could play with it. But the main cog had a battery in it and it drove the system. So it would go around in an anti-clockwise direction. The cog you connected to that would then go in a clockwise direction. And it made a whole lot of different patterns for want of a better word.

So in a changing carbon world, using that analogy, we have all the cogs that we need this time around. We have the Paris Agreement. We have 196 countries that have agreed. We have the Article 6 playbook, which was issued in Baku. We have African countries issuing policies. We have affluent governments who understand the previous mechanism, which was the Clean Development Mechanism, the CDM, and how that worked and how you could get carbon credits. We have international standards, ratings agencies and insurance companies involved. So what I’m saying is, this time around, yes, there’s change. Change is normal. The rate of change is quick. But this time around, I do think we have all the cogs and we just need to put those cogs together so that we can connect them and make this market work.

Q: What are your favourite success stories that you can share of carbon credit swapping and selling?

My favourite stories; I love this. I think in terms of swapping and selling, I don’t have any stories. But I think in terms of impact, I’ve got a couple of stories. There was a project developer once who told me that she asked a lady who was involved in a project similar to cook stoves, it was an energy efficiency cooking device, what made her happy about that particular project? On a cook stove project, it’s not unusual to hear that the lady is happy with the cook stove, because she’s got a job, she can afford school fees, because she’s not out collecting wood so frequently, because she has money coming in, she can buy school shoes for her children who walk barefoot to school in the winter. But this particular story, my heart still kind of softens when I hear it, is that this lady liked this particular project, because she said I can now cook with dignity. In other words, she could cook standing up and not bending over a fire.

So there are some examples where the benefits of these projects are hard to measure, but we know that the benefits that accrue to the ground. I told this story to our staff in 2021 in Washington, and I had all the ladies on the team in tears. And that particular project also has an app so they can geolocate every single device that’s distributed into the field. And this is actually a South African project, which is awesome. The nice thing about using that app is that they use it to share recipes and they’ll also use it for general health safety advice and tips. I think there are a lot of additional benefits to these projects that accrue to the ground. And that’s what kind of keeps me working in this field, seeing what people can actually achieve.

The second story I have is about solar water pumps. There’s a project in Kenya that I visited a couple of weeks ago. Basically, there are a couple of pumps that people can buy. You could put the pump down into the river or into a borehole and draw water out of it. You get a certain pump, depending on how much money you’re prepared to spend, certain lengths of pipe, depending on the head that you need to draw against.

And this particular gentleman got involved in the project and he’s a very clever MBA guy. So he’s involved in finding the funding and doing the carbon side of it. He said to me, what hooked him on the project was that he went to go and see a gentleman on site. And this gentleman said that as a result of having the pump, he now has six growing seasons in a year as opposed to one, which is guaranteed vs waiting for rain, allowing perhaps one and a half a growing season’s because the rain wasn’t so great. And as a result of having six growing seasons, he now has enough income to put his son through university. He said to the gentleman: “My son will become an educated man and I wasn’t.” So those are the kind of impact stories from these carbon credit projects that need to be told, that are told through our impact stories and that’s what makes me go to my desk every day.

Q: How is Africa doing in terms of making the most of its natural resources and obtaining VCM finance for development?

As soon as I see natural resources, I convert that to carbon projects. I see lots of opportunities being taken up in the last few years and in my travels. Obviously, I alluded to the solar water project. There are a lot of cook stove projects. I think in Kenya, what I’ve seen is a direct air capture project, which you might think is unusual because it’s these large containers that they put down that literally suck carbon out of the atmosphere. And you sort of assume that that’s for the Global North. But it requires a lot of energy to be able to suck that atmosphere in. And in Kenya, we’re sitting on the Rift Valley where we have geothermal energy, which is cheap. So I’ve seen certain companies start to put down their containers and negotiate with communities to start to do this. And this is just making use of natural resources in Africa, which I think is fantastic.

Here in South Africa, we’ve got agricultural projects. At a dairy just outside Gqeberha, the dairy farmers had data which they were using in their track and trace system, and they were able to use that to claim carbon credits, and they’re now expanding that into different sectors like the wheat and the maize sectors. There’s also grassland management, and then of course in South Africa we have a few spekboom projects coming along and then biochar has just popped its head up in the last couple of months.

I think the other opportunities in Africa are that they are all distributed, so it’s not going to be one large industrial project where we’re saving a gazillion, or million tons of carbon. It might be that it’s a whole lot of little projects. So for example, what I see in my travels in East Africa and West Africa is e-bikes, and these have started to penetrate in Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya. In Kenya, they call them boda-bodas. And so what happens is a person drives a little e-bike. They are expensive initially, but the carbon finance assists. Instead of putting fuel in it, which is obviously not good for the environment, they can then go and swap a battery. In South Africa, we swap a gas bottle, but maybe you could swap a solar charged battery. And as long as that battery is charged through renewable energy, then one could claim the carbon credits for that. And instead of using, I’ve read numbers of $11 a day being spent on fuel, it would maybe only charge them $3 or $4 a day to swap the battery. So there’s a saving there for those particular communities. But this is, again, using solar resources in Africa. So I think Africa is using its natural resources, and we just need to continue to scale to drive that carbon finance to those particular projects.

Q: Which countries on the continent are doing the right things to prepare for carbon markets?

I think it would be remiss of me to mention or point out one or two countries. I travel a lot. I’ve recently been to the East African Carbon Alliance meeting, the West African Carbon Alliance meeting. And I see a lot of policies and frameworks that are being developed presently. However, they are all at different levels: One country could be really well advanced in its policy, and another is still trying to kind of figure out the nuts and bolts of it. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I think that makes an unfair comparison for countries.

I think what’s more important is that we look at what countries are doing to encourage project developers to come into their country to build those carbon projects, either in the voluntary space or the compliance space. I think what’s important is that countries, in terms of doing the right things, don’t need to charge exorbitant prices just to list the project with the government. That information is available on the registries. Don’t withhold letters of approval, because you need a letter of approval in order to make your credits fungible to be used in the Paris Agreement. Don’t charge super high fees for corresponding adjustments, because they need to submit that to account for the impact that the project had on the ground. If they’ve sold those credits, Governments need to add it on to the carbon footprint as a country.

I think the countries need to start to make a legally sound environment. They need to be very clear in terms of their policy, what projects are acceptable in their country and what projects are not acceptable. And I think that, as I said once again, to name one or two countries at this stage would not be fair, but there is definitely movement in the right direction.

Q: What is your vision for what carbon markets can mean for the continent?

So my vision for carbon markets this time around is that African leaders and African countries don’t miss the boat, literally. So in the Clean Development Mechanism, which was under the Kyoto Protocol before, only a couple of projects were registered, and African countries were a little left behind. I think I saw something like 3,500 wind projects in China. So they capitalised on that particular opportunity. This time around, Africa, I think, needs to catch up a little bit. That said, I’m seeing a lot of movement in governments and discussions.

So as I said, I was recently at the West African Carbon Alliance and the East African Carbon Alliance, and countries will literally send delegations from one country to another to learn from each other, to learn how they are creating their policies, how they are addressing Article 6, how they are addressing their nationally determined indicators and contributions and how they can best capitalise on this market going forward. I think that that’s really exciting to see this genuine interest, this genuine attempt to scale up these markets and a lot more policies coming out. My vision would be that we have lots of projects on the continent because also there’s a lot of those social benefits that get attached to that. So the SD VIsta project, as I said, you can label your project with that. There’s a lot of benefits that accrue to the ground and to communities, which people are looking for when they buy a credit these days.

Q: Anything you would like to add.

The last thing I’d like to add is that carbon markets are not perfect. Obviously, there’s always a criticism of them. It’s the best tool we have right now. I do see a lot of impact as a result of the work that we do at a community level. And communities are definitely involved, collecting data and want to be a part of these projects and processes. Therefore, they take time because you’re trying to involve communities as well as take into account legislation and get the project process approved. So I think it’s really important that we don’t diss the market so much it fails and there is a bad actor somewhere. The most important thing now is that we need scale. We need scale to make these projects work faster and involve the communities so that we can reduce carbon dioxide. For me, I’m a mother, and I want to make sure that I leave the world in a better place for my twins.

AGES interview at Enlit Africa with:  Brigette Nagel, Carbon Project Developer, Anthesis South Africa. Brigette was also a panellist in the Carbon Credits Roundtable at Enlit Africa in May 2025.

Q: Tell us about the background about you, the company Anthesis, and what do you do.

So I’d like to start with my own background. Initially, I started off my career as a chemical engineer working in the mining sector and mining consultancy space, and it was very exciting, lots of great exposure and wonderful opportunities. But soon I started to deal with this inner turmoil, and I realised that I wanted to do something that specifically focuses on improving the planet.

So a few years in I quit my job, and I started to work at an NGO in Zambia where we provided biodigester solutions to rural communities with solar-powered boreholes. I was just fascinated by this technology where you can deal with waste, as well as supply water and electricity, and I wanted to see it implemented more widely.

Now, one of the key challenges we faced was financial viability. The projects just couldn’t stand on their own feet. They needed grant funding. So I set off to do a master’s degree on the techno-economics of biogas, but also other renewable energy technologies in the context of developing countries like South Africa. What I discovered and one of my key findings during my research was that we really need to valorise the environmental benefits that certain technologies bring, because financially it is not always viable on its own. But if you take these environmental benefits into account, it carries great weight.

And that is where my journey with the voluntary carbon market started. And so I basically approached my current employer, Anthesis, they were not doing any renewable energy projects at the time, but they were willing to employ me nonetheless. And yes, that’s how our journey started. And today I’m proud to say that three years later, we have five large scale renewable energy projects under development and that I’m playing a very active role in developing those projects.

Q: Tell us about your successes, you’ve had an agricultural success story recently, and then more specifically your, your energy projects.

I would like to first just say a little bit more about Anthesis. As a company, we started out about 12 years ago in South Africa. We were a branch of a Dutch company called Climate Neutral Group. Initially, we only focused on all things carbon, from carbon footprinting to carbon tax and then also to carbon offsets. But three years ago, we were acquired by the British company Anthesis, and we have now grown to be the largest or one of the largest sustainability consultants in the world.

We have a presence in about 23 countries and we focus on a very wide range of sustainability solutions, everything from packaging to supply chains, with carbon offsets being the final cherry on top.

AgriCarbon is one of our biggest success stories. It is a programme where we provide financial benefits and a reward to farmers who choose to farm in a sustainable, regenerative way. And we’ve also been the first company in Africa to receive carbon credit issuance under this methodology. So it’s very exciting to us. On the renewable energy side, we are also very proud of the Redstone concentrated solar plant, which is our first large-scale renewable energy project that we  have registered in South Africa.

This project consists of a very high, 250 metre high solar receiver tower that absorbs thermal energy from the sun and then stores this energy in the form of molten salts. The salts are then pumped into a subcritical steam turbine, and that’s how it is converted into electricity, which then feeds into the South African grid. This project can power approximately 200,000 homes, and it can also provide power when the sun’s not shining, and it can store power for up to 12 hours. So yes, we are really proud to be partnering with them.

Q: Let’s talk about the challenges of what is still a nascent sector, especially the carbon markets sector.

I think one of the biggest challenges in the carbon market is that it’s constantly changing. You have to really stay on top of things. One kind of technology can be eligible one day, and then the next day it’s not eligible anymore. In addition, it can be quite burdensome to get a project all the way from development to validation, registration, verification and, finally, issuance.

We do find that there is a lack of understanding in the public sector. There’s also a lack of trust in carbon credits that still needs to grow. I think that’s one of the great things about working for a company like Anthesis where we supply this wide range of services. Our clients are already on a sustainability journey, doing lots of different things. And if you see carbon credits from that perspective, it’s not a standalone solution but rather ,it’s one piece of a puzzle, then it really is a wonderful and powerful tool.

Q:How do you see VCMs changing the energy sector on the continent?

I feel that especially renewable energy, amongst other technologies, has the potential to really have a great impact on our climate and our planet. However, it needs to be at sufficient scale and carbon credits have the potential to provide the momentum that those technologies need to reach the exponential growth to really have an impact.

Q: What do you think is the biggest misconception about carbon markets and carbon credits?

I think one of the biggest misconceptions is that people see it as a standalone measure, an industry where money is just thrown at someone doing something somewhere else and you don’t have to worry about it, and then you make these claims. There’s also been widespread propaganda about greenwashing and so on, but the carbon market has really evolved a lot, including an integrity council that establishes principles for high integrity carbon credits.

Q: Is there anything you’d like to add that we haven’t touched on?

I think from my side, I’d like to encourage people to really read up a bit more about carbon markets and expand their knowledge about it. Also, if you do have a project that you feel is quite interesting that has an environmental benefit and you’re wondering whether there’s carbon credit potential, reach out to us. Or if you are a corporate and you want to embark on a sustainability journey and you’re not sure where to start, reach out to us.

Exclusive interview with Alvaro Tangocci, Technical Consultant, Ergofito, a leading company in the environmental remediation and agricultural bio-technology sectors.

Q: Thank you for joining us today. Tell us a bit about your background and your current role at Ergofito.

My name is Alvaro Tangocci, I have run the scientific aspects of Ergofito for the last 23 years. As we are dealing with a totally natural product, R&D consists of understanding nature’s parameters. The work involves biology, soil science, quantum biology and a lot of respect and awe for how nature solves all problems.

Q: Would you take us through some of what the products that Ergofito manufactures that helps restore chemical imbalances in nature and how these are applied.

Ergofito consists of 43 consortia of bacteria, fungi and enzymes, all naturally extracted from soils that have never been farmed or mined. It is a friendly extraction as nature replaces it all in two hours after field collection. Such a natural mix decomposes all that is inert and organic, such as hydrocarbons in soil or water, raw sewage and effluents, to name a few.

The product is currently used in refineries, oil production fields in Ivory Coast and Congo as well as the rest of the world. Sewage plants are treated in many countries but mostly in South Africa. It is also used in agriculture where soils are depleted and where crops or plants underperform due to land abused by extensive chemical fertilisation and soil compaction.

However chemical fertilisers are vital for food production as our world is now close to nine billion people, we need increased production, hence chemical fertilisers. When used with natural bacteria, chemical fertilisation is called biological farming, which is the future for agriculture sustainability while increasing produce output. With biological fertilisation, the best of both worlds is achieved.

Q: What are some of your favourite success stories that Ergofito was involved with so far?

We have a couple of successes that are notable. The first one is the Government of Spain that requested a highly monitored proof of concept on growing cucumbers while increasing weight, reducing fertiliser by 30% and improving produce quality by a minimum of 30%. We ran the test over the full season with all goals achieved: We were awarded a prize for agricultural innovation as we set new standards in Spain. We introduced nature back to farming: The merit goes to nature.

The largest success to date is applying Ergofito for the purpose of increasing carbon sequestration in soil via photosynthesis. A four year test was set up in the Sundays River Valley on ten hectares of lemons of the cultivar Eureka. The test was done by independent soil scientist and laboratories. We averaged 100 tons of sequestered CO2 per hectare per year, which is ten times the industry standard.

Nature has captured carbon into soil via photosynthesis over a very long period. All the coal, gas and oil ever produced was done so by photosynthesis. As we entered the Industrial Revolution over two hundred years ago, we took and still take the said stored carbon and put it back in the air. It make sense to use nature again to return it back to the soil, and thus rendering soil more fertile, more resistant to plant pathogens and more resistant to climate change. Soil without carbon and microbes is called dirt.

Q: Where in Africa are you active?

At the moment, we are in Gabon, and we are active in Congo, Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, Zambia, Mozambique, and of course South Africa and Swaziland. We have a lot of inquiries for remediation from many countries, but currently we are fully active in these countries.

Q: What kind of certifications do you have?

In South Africa we have the DAF certificate for our agricultural mixes, for the environmental mixes we have EPA in the USA as well as Food Safe Certificate SANS 1828:2017 and European Norms EN 1276:2009.

Q: This is a very new and nascent sector, what have been the challenges so far?

The main challenge in carbon sequestration is that everyone uses all types of man-made solutions, it seems that understanding photosynthesis is a challenge. Fortunately that understanding, once presented, is more and more accepted as the norm.

Q: What is your vision for what carbon markets can mean for the continent?

Africa has a massive available area able to produce carbon credits for the international market. It would be a wonderful mechanism to export an African environmental solution while improving our soils and generate serious financial incentives out of it. That is without exporting any produce. It is a known fact that industrialised countries are the largest carbon emitters, but Africa is a victim of climate change in many ways. Now we can use nature in Africa’s favour while generating billions of US dollars via carbon credits. Such wealth will change many people’s lives for the better on our continent.

Q: Anything you would like to add?

In conclusion, carbon credits are mostly based on plant mass increase or the reduction of carbon emission. Such methods work and are positive, however they are not able generate sufficient carbon credits to really make a difference. Also no one can guarantee that illegal logging will not take place, or fires or plant sickness. While, by using photosynthesis the way nature does it, we can place the capture carbon in the rhizosphere and below, safe from fires, floods, climate change or theft, in other words, truly secure. It’s a solution that would be hard to question as treated soil can be measured independently and prove permanent carbon sequestration. Trust nature.

Exclusive interview with Olivia Tuchten, Principal Climate Change Advisor, Promethium Carbon, South Africa. At the third edition of Africa’s Green Economy Summit in February, Tuchten was the co-moderator of a packed masterclass on carbon markets.

Q: Thank you for joining us today. You have a strong background in the carbon and climate change sector. Tell us a bit about your background and your current role at Promethium Carbon.

I’m Olivia Tuchten. I’m from a company called Promethium Carbon. We are a climate change advisory company. We’ve been operating in this space for over two decades now. We are primarily carbon climate change specialists and consultants. That’s all we do. That being said, our work spans across mitigation and adaptation, climate change vulnerability risk assessments and reporting for governments. I’ve been with the company for about 10 years and tend to specialise in the mitigation side of the work that we do, especially the work around carbon markets and carbon credit project development and issuance of carbon credits.

Q: Would you take us through some carbon market fundamentals please, their evolution, the challenges that followed regarding transparency and fairness. And where are we today?

Carbon markets are essentially a system that has been designed to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by assigning a monetary value to the carbon credit that is created as a result of the measure that is implemented. When I say measures, it varies, for example, you can have renewable energy measures, those types of projects which displace grid electricity that is very emissions-intensive. You can have other types of project activities like forestry projects, conservation projects that perhaps sequester or remove greenhouse gas emissions from the environment.

Typically, these types of systems and markets have operated through two mechanisms. They are generally referred to as the compliance markets and the voluntary markets. Compliance markets, we’re more and more using the term regulated markets, for example, like the South African domestic market based on our carbon tax system, which allows for the use of carbon credits to offset a corporate greenhouse gas inventory where that corporate has to pay carbon tax, and the use of carbon offsets in the system is regulated. One doesn’t have to use a carbon offset, but the rules by which you do use them is well defined in pieces of legislation.

Voluntary markets have arisen through the likes of big corporates who have recognised that there is an urgent need to decarbonise and that carbon offsets can play a vital role in this process. These types of corporates purchase carbon credits in the market to voluntarily offset their corporate greenhouse gas inventories, hence the term voluntary markets.

Q: You are working in a system that is constantly evolving and changing. What are the main challenges in your view?

The system that we are working in is evolving rapidly. One can say that the carbon markets were born out of the Kyoto Protocol, which was a UN mechanism that was implemented in the late 1990s and we’ve come a long way since then. As you will be aware we now have the Paris Agreement, which is the new UN mechanism, a new global mechanism whereby countries that have ratified and joined the Paris Agreement recognise that there is an urgent need to decarbonise because climate change is a man-made phenomenon and we have a responsibility to correct the imbalance that we as a human society have created.

The Paris Agreement has really spurred new rules to enhance market integrity. And it is really said to be the precedent in terms of carbon markets. That being said, it has taken a very long time to get to where it is now, which is almost ready to be implemented. We’re on the verge of the Paris Agreement carbon markets or international markets.

In the interim, private sector has realised that there is this urgent need to decarbonise, as I said previously, and they’ve taken matters into their own hands, if you like. And they have spurred the development of these voluntary carbon markets where carbon credits are used to offset greenhouse gas inventories of these corporates on a very voluntary basis.

Because there’s been such a rapid evolution, in terms of the carbon markets, there are certain challenges that have come up and certain criticisms and issues. For example, there are concerns raised about the integrity of carbon markets and there are various measures underway to address these types of challenges. You see that there are market players like the ICVCM, the Integrity Council for Voluntary Carbon Markets, that has come out as a champion sector or entity to establish core principles to ensure the integrity of carbon credits. There are amazing technological developments, AI, blockchain, other technology innovations in the likes of decarbonising whole systems. Those are very exciting, and really there is a growth in this market that we can see happening as a result of the drivers from the Paris Agreement, drivers at country levels, drivers from corporate citizens and ordinary citizens like you and me really spurring the development of these markets.

Q: What are some of your favourite success stories of carbon credit swaps on the continent?

Some of the success stories across the continent for me are the types of initiatives that address development needs as well as mitigating greenhouse gas emissions or removing greenhouse gas emissions from the atmosphere.

There is really amazing work being done in the renewable energy space. For example, these types of projects not only mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, but they tick a development agenda, which is to provide increased access to electricity that’s clean, that’s affordable. These are huge development agendas. In addition, there are projects that are addressing waste and sanitation needs in very innovative ways, whether it’s the use of alternative waste treatment techniques like black soldier fly larvae. These are incredible success stories. In addition, I think I must mention the huge potential for increased carbon sequestration on the continent. And that’s in the form of large forestry types of projects, large conservation types of projects as well. So they’re super exciting projects that are worth following.

Q: In your view, how is Africa positioned to take advantage of this burgeoning opportunity?

Africa is largely well prepared to take advantage of the opportunities from a number of positions. First, we have abundant natural resources that can be the basis of these carbon credit projects. For example, we have vast forests and an abundance of sunshine and wind, and these make really good drivers for the development of carbon projects and carbon markets on the continent. I think you will know that the ACMI, the Africa Carbon Markets Initiative, which was launched recently, recognises the potential on the African continent and the aim of ACMI is to scale voluntary carbon markets significantly.

There are obviously some challenges in this regarding transparency issues around the development of these types of projects around the monitoring, the reporting, the methodologies that are used. And there are instances of market failures, whether they are through negligence or through forward greenwashing, double counting. Those are types of examples that that really is an issue that needs to be addressed in the market.

Some other issues relate to typically low carbon credit prices for these types of project initiatives. And that certainly needs to be addressed because these projects need to be sustainable in the long term and we need fair carbon prices to make that happen.

Q: Which countries on the continent are doing the right things to prepare for carbon markets? What more needs to be done?

We have a number of early movers, rock stars, superstars on the continent who are really paving the way for the development of international carbon markets. For example, Ghana is one of the very first early movers. They have developed a very innovative approach to formalising mainstreaming carbon markets within their economy. Kenya is an enormously important regional hub. That’s where ACMI is located. The Kenyans historically have a large amount of carbon credit projects that have been registered with well-recognised carbon programmes. So, they have a huge wealth of experience and capacity to develop these types of projects. East African countries, West African countries, they have alliances, which are proving incredibly beneficial in sharing information and knowledge. Regional cooperation in that regard is absolutely key to developing carbon markets on the continent.

South Africa, obviously, is also a leader on the continent in terms of carbon markets. As you may be aware, we have a carbon tax system which provides for the use of a limited amount of carbon credits to offset taxpaying entities carbon tax liabilities. And that’s been a huge success and is expected to grow well into the future.

There are obviously the areas for improvement. We need better policy and regulatory frameworks that enable these types of project activities. We need transparency on governance regarding how these projects are managed from a private sector level and a public sector. And obviously there does need to be capacity building on the continent, which is very important.

Q: At the third AGES in February, you co-moderated a masterclass on carbon markets with another expert. The room was packed, and it was a great success. What were your main take-aways in terms of audience questions and views?

There was a very positive outcome from the carbon markets masterclass that was held at AGES. Really what we got was there was a strong enthusiasm for carbon markets. There were a large number of attendees and I think that just demonstrates the interest in this potential tool that can be used to address our global climate change crisis.

Other insights from the masterclass were that there’s a real need to focus on practical applications. How do you make a carbon credit project? How do you get the finance for it? Those are the types of needs that need to be addressed. I think there was also overwhelming optimism about Africa’s potential to participate in these markets, whereas Africa did not successfully participate in the Kyoto markets, namely the clean development mechanism, it didn’t participate very well. I think that there’s a recognition of where there were failures, and there is an understanding of the lessons learned, and I hope that we can apply that going forward.

Obviously, one of the key takeaways, again, is the need to unlock finances for projects in these sectors. And that may also require capacity building, whether it is technology transfer, whether it’s human capital, those kind of things. Those were the main key insights arising from that workshop.

Q: What is your vision for what carbon markets can mean for the continent?

We are absolutely committed to developing carbon markets across the continent, particularly because carbon markets have the potential to contribute to the continent’s development agendas. And the way in which carbon markets can do that is that they can provide access to funds for measures that were previously considered economically unfeasible, or perhaps they faced other barriers like a lack of access to technology. Perhaps there were regulatory, legislative, political kind of barriers that have prevented these incredibly important projects from taking place. I do want to caution that carbon markets are not a silver bullet to our climate crisis. What they do represent is a key component in our suite of measures to address the climate crisis.

Carbon markets can be an incredibly substantive and long-term component of these suite of measures to address climate change.

Q: Anything you would like to add?

Other than to say I’m very keen and excited about the next phase of these workshops and looking forward to engaging further with interested parties, even critics, at the upcoming workshops and sessions.