Point Carbon Advisory Hires World-Leading Expert on Due Diligence of Offsets Projects

Oslo (23 November 2009) 

Point Carbon, the leading provider of market intelligence, news, analysis, forecasting and advisory services for the energy and environmental markets, announced today that it has hired world-renowned expert Einar Telnes to further the expertise of its carbon offset due diligence practice. Einar Telnes will join Point Carbon’s Advisory department as a Senior Advisor, based in Point Carbon’s Oslo headquarters. 

“Point Carbon has reinforced its position as a first-class provider of independent expertise along the whole offset project value chain. Einar Telnes will ensure Point Carbon significantly strengthens its ability to conduct detailed onsite due diligence of offset projects and assess project-specific risks. Already we have seen increased interest from the clean technology sector, where Telnes’ recent experience will prove extremely valuable,” said Per-Otto Wold, CEO of Point Carbon.

Since the 1990s Telnes has been involved in the development of all major international standards related to monitoring, verification and accreditation services for greenhouse gases. He has worked with approximately 60 countries around the world and has assessed most project types. Through his previous role as director of Det Norske Veritas’ (DNV’s) climate change services Telnes had overall responsibility for assessing whether hundreds of projects were in line with Clean Development Mechanisms (CDM) and Joint Implementation (JI) rules and procedures. He has also been involved in system, protocol and methodology design under the European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS), other national emissions trading schemes, voluntary offset projects and corporate inventory reporting programmes.

Commenting on his new position, Telnes said, “This position gives me an excellent opportunity to provide my combined insights and hands on experience in several of the critical fields for climate change projects to Point Carbon clients, as well as still be actively involved in the development of the future global carbon regime”

Note to editors

• The CDM allows private and public sectors to invest in emission-reduction projects in developing countries and receive related emission reduction credits that are tradable and can be bought by emitters to offset their own emissions.

• JI allows investors from one industrialised country to engage in an emission reduction project in another industrialised country and use credits to meet their own compliance targets.

• Most recently, Telnes provided advice on technical, financial and carbon due diligence to project developers and clean technology start-ups. The contracts for some of these assignments involved payments as a percentage of carbon credits, which is not in line with the stringent conflict of interest regulations for Point Carbon’s employees. Point Carbon stresses that until 6 months after these assignments have been wound up, Telnes will not conduct any analysis or consultancy assignments on the markets, technologies, projects or companies in question. This will be done in order to maintain Point Carbon’s independence.

For comments, further information, or to see a copy of the report, please contact:

Candida Jones
PR Manager, Point Carbon
Mob: +44 (0) 777 5754 763
E-mail: cjo@pointcarbon.com  

About Point Carbon 

Providing critical insights into energy and environmental markets

Point Carbon is a world-leading provider of independent news, analysis and consulting services for European and global power, gas and carbon markets. Point Carbon’s comprehensive services provide professionals with market-moving information through monitoring fundamental information, key market players and business and policy developments.

Point Carbon’s in-depth knowledge of power, gas and CO2 emissions market dynamics positions us as the number one supplier of unrivalled market intelligence on these markets. Our staff includes experts in international and regional climate policy, mathematical and economic modelling, forecasting methodologies, risk management and market reporting.

Point Carbon now has more than 15,000 clients, including the world’s major energy companies, financial institutions, organisations and governments, in over 150 countries. Reports are translated from English into Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese, French, Spanish and Russian.

Every year, Point Carbon’s Carbon Market Insights conferences gather thousands of key players for the carbon community’s most important annual conferences. Point Carbon also runs a number of high-level networking events, workshops and training courses.

Point Carbon has offices in Oslo (Head Office), Kiev, Malmö, London, Washington D.C., Tokyo, Beijing, Hamburg and Zürich.