Pressure on institutions to understand and measure the environmental impact of their operations continues to intensify from regulators, clients, and shareholders. The voluntary carbon market or VCM represents an opportunity. In his session titled “Driving efficiency and transparency in the voluntary carbon market” at the upcoming PostTrade 360° 2025 conference, Anthony Stevens, head of innovation for Northern Trust’s digital assets and financial markets group, will discuss how the Northern Trust Carbon Ecosystem is a vital part of enabling the VCM to operate at scale

The VCM is a decentralised market where private parties purchase and sell carbon credits. The purchase of high-integrity carbon credits from project developers can unlock urgently needed finance, injecting funds into companies looking to invest in solutions that avoid, remove, or capture greenhouse gases including carbon dioxide.

The VCM will only deliver on its promise if it is rooted in integrity. The Northern Trust Carbon Ecosystem is a fully digital platform for the end-to-end lifecycle management of digital carbon credits. Utilising custom designed, private ledger digital blockchain technology, it provides a digital platform for project developers and buyers to explore, transact, and retire voluntary carbon credits.

Northern Trust acts on instruction to record, transfer, and settle digital carbon credits in its capacity as the designated custodian. The platform has already welcomed more than 20 project developers, giving institutional buyers a variety of options for digital carbon credits.

Transparency leads to uptake

“The VCM market needs increased transparency, asset definition clarity, ownership and importantly, a more robust global infrastructure,” says Stevens. “Buyers want more transparency and clarity into carbon credits and The Northern Trust Ecosystem can provide that with a level of detail including when and where the credit was generated. The use of digital technology to manage the lifecycle of digital carbon credits gives both the buyer and project developers confidence and transparency through the lifecycle of their voluntary carbon credit transactions.”

He adds that development is a way to enable companies to take immediate action as part of their journey to look at longer-terms ways of reducing their environmental impact. Some will become less impactful faster than others, so VCMs help bridge the gap between what they are doing now and the kind of company they want to be in the future, providing a short-term solution that helps the transition to lower impact business models.

Have you signed up yet to be in Stockholm for PostTrade 360° 2025 on 3–4 September? It’s free for securities operations pros, both trading and investor sides! (Vendor firm representatives need a sponsorship agreement.) The powerful event website lets you register, see all other delegates, schedule sessions and meetings, and message. Find all related articles, including loads of teaser interviews, here.