The Climate Action Data Trust (CAD Trust) has launched its 20-member user forum, which will act as a “market sounding board” for technical, policy and business questions.
The group shares CAD Trust’s commitment to increasing transparency and interoperability in carbon markets, says the organisation in a June 6 press release.
CAD Trust is a platform to share information about carbon credits and projects, launched in December 2022 by the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA), the World Bank and the Singapore government. As an independent entity headquartered here, CAD Trust aims to link, aggregate and harmonise all carbon credit data from project registries to facilitate transparent reporting.
Among the 20 chosen members are Saurabh Joshi, director of strategic projects at Climate Impact X, and Anshari Rahman, director of policy and analytics at the Temasek subsidiary GenZero.
The 20 carbon market stakeholders will provide input to the CAD Trust council’s priorities during an interim period, which lasts until the end of 2024.
The CAD Trust council advises the board of directors. As at its launch in December 2022, the Council consists of national representatives from Bhutan, Chile, Japan, Senegal, Singapore and the UK, along with registry representatives Verra, Gold Standard, American Carbon Registry and Global Carbon Council, among others.
See also: Singapore government, IETA, World Bank launch carbon credits data platform
The user forum will also comment on the data model resulting from the work of the technical committee. This will include, among other things, suggesting future changes, identifying potential data use cases, communicating market needs to enable better data use and identifying desired IT updates and inputting into future feature development.
The council may also use the forum as a body for ad-hoc stakeholder consultations within a smaller, defined group. Additionally, the forum may form sub-committees or workstreams for different topics. The forum will also recommend to the council how to proceed with the group in the medium term to help the council to develop CAD Trust’s governance approach for the period after the interim period.
The council will transition into a “permanent governance period” from end-2024. At its launch, the CAD Trust said this could see the council expand or retain members.
Looking ahead, CAD Trust will establish regular consultations with this forum, who are due to meet for the first time on June 14. “The group is set to play a crucial role in advising on the development of the optimal governance, design and technical elements of the CAD Trust and in achieving the goals of market transparency, trust and registry interoperability.”
