Time Zone:
(UTC+01:00) Oslo
Contact

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Carbon Project Manager North America?
Carbon Project Manager North America (CPM NA) is the premier information resource for North American voluntary and compliance offset markets. Alongside up-to-the-minute news, in-depth analysis, and pricing, CPM NA’s searchable database includes over 500 offset projects and 1,000 contacts, providing you with a unique, indispensible tool to make business decisions in the North American carbon market.

Back to top

How can CPM NA help my organization?
With this tool, your organization can:

  • Query the world’s largest database of North America carbon offsets by:
    • Project Developer or by any other Party
    • Project Stage
    • State/province or Country
    • Offset Project Type
    • Standard or Protocol
  • Identify market trends by using the aggregated information on our Statistics subtab
  • Locate buyers, sellers, and partners by searching on the Market Player subtab
  • Understand North American offset pricing by checking our monthly updated price ranges for different types of offsets
  • Utilize contact information to expand client base, develop partnerships, evaluate competition, make strategic hires, find conference speakers, etc.
  • Read the latest analysis on the offset markets, so that pricing, news, and developments are put into the context of how it affects players in this market

Back to top

Who are its primary users?

  • Financial firms (Traders, Investment Banks, etc)
  • Project Developers, Aggregators, and Verifiers
  • Government and Non Governmental Organizations
  • Academia
  • Utility and Industrial Companies

Back to top

How do users access the system?
Data is accessible via the internet through the website, with an approved user name and password. (http://www.pointcarbon.com/trading/cpmna/)

Back to top

How and where is data collected?
The data is collected through a variety of public, semi-private (membership based), and confidential sources. These sources include but are not limited to: public and private registries, media reports, SEC documents, personal communication, press releases, exclusive client information exchanges, company websites, and academic publications.

Back to top

Who is responsible for data entry and management?
A program manager and a team of carbon offset specialists in North America and Kiev, Ukraine manage the database.  In addition, the product is supported by a technical team in Kiev as well.

Back to top

How frequently does the team update the data?
Data is updated on an “ongoing” basis, focusing on the following trigger events:

  • When projects shift from project development to commercialization
  • Commercialization to production emission reductions
  • Emission reductions produced to emission reductions verified
  • Emissions reductions verified to certified
  • Project termination
  • Credit retirement

Back to top

How do you aggregate the price ranges?
The price ranges are aggregated from transaction information provided by buyers, sellers, traders, and brokers in the North American carbon market.  The transactions are reported on a monthly basis, and focus on offsets in the United States and Canada. These prices reflect a primary market price, but do not carry any issuance or certification risk. For price points that show a range of transaction prices (highest and lowest), Point Carbon averages the mid-market price for that range of prices. For price points that reflect bid-ask spreads, Point Carbon averages the bids and offers provided by participants.  Point Carbon only includes offset prices which have multiple data sources.

Back to top

Who has access to enter or update information in the database?
Currently, data entry access via internet is available only by permission of the program manager and changes to data are tracked in the database.

Back to top

What do the different project “Stages” mean?
In order to best approximate the Clean Development Mechanism process, Point Carbon has slotted each of the projects into a particular stage.

  • Research and Development: The project is in an early stage, and the technology is still unproven at this time.  For example, early stage CCS or Wave Energy projects may qualify for this.
  • Demonstration and Commercialization:  The project has a proven technology, but it still is going through the process of siting, permitting, licensing, financing, and/or construction.  The project is not online yet, but it is in the process of coming online.  An example of this would be an initial RFP for construction of methane capture at a landfill gas project.
  • Producing ERs: The project is currently online and reducing emissions, and awaits verification or will not seek verification. The project has also not yet been listed on an offsets registries.
  • Project Listed: The project has been listed on an offsets registry, but has not yet been verified or been issued credits.
  • Project Verified: The project has received verification from a 3rd party source that it is reducing emissions. It may or may not have been listed on an offsets registry.
  • Credits Issued: The project has been issued credits by an official standard, certifier, or verifier. The project may or may not be listed on an offsets registry.
  • Project Finished: The project has finished issuing credits, and is no longer generating offsets.
  • Project Termination: The project has been terminated early for unforeseen reasons, and is not creating carbon offsets.

Back to top

What do the different project “Types” mean?
The database of projects is broken up into 12 types:

  • Agricultural Waste: This includes any waste from agricultural sites.  Primarily this type concerns projects which include an anaerobic digestor for animal waste, but it can also include wastewater treatment as well.
  • Biosequestration:  This includes any project which looks to sequester carbon through biological means (aside from forestry or soil sequestration projects).  In practice, this predominately concerns algae-related projects.
  • Energy Efficiency: This includes both demand side energy efficiency as well as energy efficiency in power generation and industrial facilities.
  • Forestry: This includes any project which looks to sequester carbon through the planting or conservation of woody plants and trees.  Reforestation, afforestation, conservation, forest management, and urban forestry are subtypes of forestry.
  • Fuel Switching: This includes projects which look to change their fuel source to reduce their net CO2 emissions.  Industrial and power generation facilities as part of this type will typically switch in biomass, biofuels, or even natural gas as a way of reducing their carbon footprint.
  • Fugitive Emissions/CMM: This includes projects which reduce the amount of greenhouse gases which escape to the air as part of their business.  This typically relates to methane and natural gas, particularly coal mine methane (CMM) wherein methane from coal mines or beds is captured or flared.
  • Industrial Processes: These include reduction of emissions from projects which are releasing high levels of industrial greenhouse gases (HFCs, SF6, PFCs, N2O, etc). This also includes projects which incinerate ozone depleting substances (ODS).
  • Landfill Gas: This includes methane capture at landfill sites.
  • Renewable Energy: This includes the following project subtypes: fuel cells, biomass, hydropower, geothermal, solar, tidal, wave and wind energy.
  • Soil Sequestration: This includes no-till or grass projects, which look to sequester carbon dioxide and methane in the ground by changing farming or other kinds of behavior
  • Transportation: This includes projects which reduce transportation emissions. Typically, this is performed either through switching fossil fuel inputs with renewable fuels, or becoming more energy efficient in the use of transportation fuels.

Back to top

What do the different player “Roles” mean?
Organizations can be categorized in a number of roles, and an organization can be assigned more than one on any given project:

  • Academic: A university or educational entity that is providing support, as part of a project, paper, dissertation, or report.
  • Aggregator: An organization that is purchasing credits, with the intention of selling them in the secondary market to a third party, similar to a marketer.  This organization is not looking to utilize them for their own compliance. Aggregators hope to make money by purchasing credits for a lower price, and then selling them at a higher price. This role often overlaps with project developer, carbon credit buyer, and project proponent.
  • Broker: A financial organization that brings buyers and sellers together, and arranges the deals.  Brokers do not take ownership of the credits, but typically make money as a percentage of the overall transaction value.
  • Carbon Credit Buyer: An organization that is purchasing the credits from the project.
  • Carbon Exchange Representative: A financial exchange where the credits from this project are exclusively sold.
  • Certifier: The organization that certifies the credits, stating that the project and its credits adhere to their requirements.  This is separate from a verifier, which acts on the ground as an auditor. Typically, the certifier needs approval from the verifier before certification, though systems vary. This can also overlap with standards organization or registry.
  • Consultant: An organization that provides guidance and advisory support to a project, but is neither owner of the credits, nor is involved in the sales transaction. The consultant delivers its services for a fee.
  • Government regulator: The government entity directly involved in the project, either as an investor, regulatory body, or as approver/certifier.
  • Investor: Any organization that has invested in the offset project but does not purchase or own credits directly.
  • Other Party: An organization that participates in the project in a way that is not otherwise categorized within this list.
  • Power Purchaser: An organization that is purchasing power from the offset project, most often as part of a power purchase agreement. This organization may or may not be purchasing the green attributes as part of that purchase agreement.
  • Project Developer: The organization that is responsible for installing the emission reduction activity, and is the original owner of the carbon credits from the project. The developer can either implement the project directly, or contract out various parts of that task.
  • Project Proponent: The organization that is the lead contact for carbon credit monetization and sales for the project. This role often overlaps with project developer, aggregator, or project host.
  • Project Host: The owner of the site where the emission reduction activity takes place.  This organization does not necessarily have any stake in the ownership of the credits, though this depends on the agreement under which the project is implemented.
  • REC Buyer: The organization that is purchasing renewable energy certificates (RECs) from the offset project.
  • Registry: The system where the project is listed, and where typically the credits are issued, tracked, and given unique serial numbers. The registry usually works in tandem with a standards organization, government organization, or certifier to provide transparency and accountability to the system.
  • Standards Organization: The organization that provides methodologies and protocols which are used as requirements or guidelines for monetizing credits.
  • Technology Provider: The company or partner that provides equipment which plays a role in the emission reduction activity.
  • Validator: The organization that does on the ground auditing to ensure that a project meets all requirements for registration or listing with a certifier, registry, or standards organization. The validator does not specifically monitor annual reductions, but only looks at the eligibility of the project as a whole.
  • Verifier: The organization that does on the ground auditing to monitor reductions, and verify specific reductions over a time period, so that those reductions can be issued for the project. In many voluntary systems, the verifier can play the dual role of verifier and validator, and in that case, the organization will be designated verifier.

 

Back to top

What do the different “dates” mean?
Projects have a number of dates which are shown for each project. Here is the meaning of each of those dates:

  • Project Start Date: The date when the reduction activity has started and begun to generate carbon credits.  In the case where the reductino activity has started but reductions cannot be generated until later, the start date should be the first date when the reductions are montizable into carbon credits.
  • Project End Date: The date when the offset project is due to end creating carbon credits.
  • Project approval date: The date when the project has been given approval to move ahead to create carbon credits. On the Climate Action Reserve, this is designated as the date of completion for the submission document.
  • Listing date: The date that the project has been first listed on the respective registry.
  • Verification date: The date when the verification report has been completed. On the Climate Action Registry, this date is displayed on the Project Verification Opinion document.
  • Issuance date: The date when the project first receives issued credits for its reductions.

Back to top

What procedures ensure that the data system consistently captures all data occurrences (records, observations) and all data elements?
An application level of the database helps to consistently capture all data. It checks incoming data from user for syntax (e.g. valid emails, no duplicate projects, lower vs. higher margins, non-null entries, positive numbers for volumes etc.). A second layer at the database level checks for foreign keys, not-null constraints, checks, and unique columns. A third layer is a test suite that runs on regular basis and detects workflow errors. This helps to generate reports that analysts will check manually (like registered reductions on the project that is on the demonstration stage, verifier report for project on the ER’s produced stage, etc.)

Back to top

Is there written documentation of these procedures?
Written documentation of the procedures is available via scripts and schema but this process is highly confidential and only available via written request and granted only for very specific instances.

Back to top

Are any tests (e.g., spot checks, systematic reviews, exception reports) conducted to assure that the data were entered accurately?
The true test of the data is that Point Carbon does not make blind assumptions – all data stems from public, confidential, or semi-confidential sources and sources are cited. Source information is located in the project summary, URL, or available in downloadable PDF. Contact information is also provided, so the client can verify the accuracy of the information. Analysts at Point Carbon review the data once when entered, once again and/or twice during a Quality Assurance (Q&A) process to make sure it is current, updated and or accurate. Due the rapidly changing marketplace, Point Carbon cannot guarantee the data is up-to-date but attempts to capture changing shifts between major stages of the project. However, these shifts are only captured when marketplayers disclose those details, which does not always happen. We encourage clients to inform us when data changes, is not current or is inaccurate and welcome all comments and suggestions via carbonresearch.NA@thomsonreuters.com. Analysts will address the issues as they arise. Please note that IT programmers work in Kiev, may not be able to accommodate the problem until the following business day – due to the six hour to nine hour time difference between North America and the Ukraine.

Back to top

Are there any limitations of the data?
By nature of the current unregulated marketplace, it is impossible to assume that we have captured all the data in the marketplace.  However, CPM NA is still the world’s best information source for North American carbon offsets.

Back to top

Are there any purposes for which the data should not be used?
When clients purchase a subscription, they acknowledge that Thomson Reuters owns all rights titles and interests in Carbon Project Manager North America "CPM NA", including, without limitation, the contents and/or results contained in or derived from the CPM NA and all intellectual property and proprietary rights related to CPM NA or contained therein.
Furthermore the client acknowledges that it acquires no rights in CPM NA except for the right to use CPM NA as expressly agreed upon (to be determined), and agrees never to contest any of the rights of Point Carbon in and to CPM NA.
The client will not, without the prior written consent of Thomson Reuters, reproduce, summarize, incorporate into a report or other document, publish or otherwise distribute, in any form or by any means, whether internally or externally, any data, information, analysis, calculations, models, forecasts and systems contained in or derived from CPM NA to persons who have not paid for CPM NA.
The client will not, without the prior written consent of Point Carbon, redistribute CPM NA or any part thereof.
Lastly, the client would be prohibited from using or allowing the use of, CPM NA or any part thereof or in any way communicating the contents and/or results contained in or derived from CPM NA as part of a competing service or product.

Back to top

What steps have others taken to improve the data in order to conduct an analysis?
When appropriate Thomson Reuters Point Carbon estimates based on simple calculations and/or imputation. Often Thomson Reuters Point Carbon will use numbers based on projects of similar size. For example,
1) Thomson Reuters Point Carbon, when tracking transactions, will have one or two aspects of the data set (e.g. Total volume and price per credit) but not all aspects (annual volume, length of the project). In this case we use simple calculations to estimate, volume, and/or price per ton.
2) When tracking project volume Thomson Reuters Point Carbon will assess herd units, capacity, acreage and other various values that provide a general ball park for an estimate. In an effort to not overestimate the size of the market, it should be noted that Thomson Reuters Point Carbon relies on minimal not maximum estimates.

Back to top

Why use Carbon Project Manager to track trends in the marketplace over previously published reports?
Several attempts have been made to model offset supply using theoretical methods using government inventories of voluntary emission reductions using agricultural and industrial data.  This perspective is undoubtedly useful but not necessarily realistic. Several barriers prevent projects from developing or delivering offset credits for a variety of reasons – issues with up-front investment or on-going financing, price signals, registration approval, transaction costs, bureaucracy of detailed monitoring and verification, technology failure, socio-politics, internal and external competition in the market, etc. Accommodating for this reality, offset supply is presented here based on real projects in various stages of the pipeline and tracked on an ongoing basis. The rapidly evolving marketplace comprises the ability to account for every project. A conservative estimate calculated this way and tracked in real time, however, is an effective measure for tracking key trends in market activity, project performance, VERs delivered and price discovery.

Back to top