December 19, 2022
Over the last few years, market conditions have changed so dramatically that today, no matter its products or services, every company is also in the environmental business. Prompted by the real-world impacts of climate change, many consumers now demand environmental action from corporations and prefer to buy products marketed as environmentally friendly. Many companies therefore market their products as “net-zero” or “carbon neutral”—and make pledges to be, as a business, “net-zero” by a certain date. In support of these pledges, companies often buy carbon credits from voluntary carbon markets to offset or mitigate their carbon emissions voluntarily.
Voluntary carbon markets present opportunity, but also create financial, regulatory, and litigation risks. Because the voluntary markets are often fragmented, suffer from a lack of transparency and, above all, are not subject to any statutory common standards, there is a lack of trust in the credits issued under these system which also limits the tradability of the credits.
This quarterly newsletter aggregates the knowledge and experience of Gibson Dunn attorneys around the globe as we help our clients across all sectors navigate the ever-changing landscape of voluntary carbon markets.
The following Gibson Dunn lawyers assisted in the preparation of this alert: Susy Bullock, Abbey Hudson, Brad Roach, Lena Sandberg, Jeffrey Steiner, Jonathan Cockfield, Arthur Halliday*, Yannis Ioannidis, Alexandra Jones, Mark Tomaier, and Alwyn Chan.
Gibson Dunn’s lawyers are available to assist in addressing any questions you may have regarding these developments. To learn more about these issues, please contact the Gibson Dunn lawyer with whom you usually work, any member of the firm’s Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG), Environmental Litigation and Mass Tort, Global Financial Regulatory, or Energy practice groups, or the following authors:
Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Group:
Susy Bullock – London (+44 (0) 20 7071 4283, [email protected])
Environmental Litigation and Mass Tort Group:
Abbey Hudson – Los Angeles (+1 213-229-7954, [email protected])
Global Financial Regulatory Group:
Jeffrey L. Steiner – Washington, D.C. (+1 202-887-3632, [email protected])
Energy, Regulation and Litigation Group:
Lena Sandberg – Brussels (+32 2 554 72 60, [email protected])
Oil and Gas Group:
Brad Roach – Singapore (+65 6507 3685, [email protected])
*Arthur Halliday is recent law graduate in the Los Angeles office who is not yet admitted to practice law.
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