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Xpansiv platform to launch carbon credit trading

Angela Macdonald-Smith
Angela Macdonald-SmithSenior resources writer

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A carbon trading platform partly owned by private equity giant Blackstone will become the first exchange to start offering Australian Carbon Credit Unit trading in a move that reflects the expanding interest across the economy in accessing environmental products to help meet decarbonisation goals.

Xpansiv, in which Blackstone invested almost $600 million in July, said its CBL environmental commodity spot exchange secured an Australian financial services licence for carbon products in Australia.

CBL will offer Australian Carbon Credit Unit trading as of the March quarter of 2023. Alamy

The move will make CBL the first exchange market for Australian Carbon Credit Units as of the March quarter of 2023, said Xpansiv chief commercial officer Ben Stuart.

The move taps growing demand for the products as institutional investors and other market participants seek to trade them alongside the existing energy and environmental products on the CBL platform.

Mr Stuart said CBL was originally participating in a process being run by the Clean Energy Regulator to invite offers to provide exchange services for ACCUs, but did not meet all the criteria and so decided to go its own way and get its own licence to offer trading in the units.

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The CBL platform already handles more than 90 per cent of spot exchange-traded carbon credits globally, including Australian products such as Renewable Energy Certificates, Energy Efficiency Certificates, Tasmanian Gas Pipeline storage and loan products and other traded products in carbon, water, gas and renewable energy.

Mr Stuart said it made sense to have one place to trade environmental products and noted CBL already had relationships with carbon farming product originators, the financial sector and energy market participants.

He said the move would support growth of the carbon market in Australia, and added the firm had seen the opportunity to align with Australia’s Clean Energy Regulator to allow ACCU contracts to trade side-by-side with voluntary offsets.

“Alignment between government-led regulatory initiatives and private infrastructure serves to accelerate our shared goal of bringing efficiency, transparency, and liquidity to environmental markets,” Mr Stuart said.

Angela Macdonald-Smith writes on the resources industry with a focus on energy, including gas, oil, electricity and renewables. Connect with Angela on Twitter. Email Angela at amacdonald-smith@afr.com

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