Bursa Carbon Exchange inks MoU, MOC to grow voluntary carbon market in Malaysia

DUBAI: Bursa Carbon Exchange (BCX), a wholly owned subsidiary of Bursa Malaysia Bhd, today inked a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Gold Standard to develop and grow the voluntary carbon market “landscape” in Malaysia.

The signing was done on the sidelines of the 28th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of Parties (COP28) here.

Gold Standard is an established and internationally recognised standard setter, certifier, and issuer of carbon credits, which are recorded and tracked on the Gold Standard Impact Registry.

“The MOU will enable BCX to enhance the offerings on the carbon exchange and increase the knowledge of its ecosystem players in areas such as the process of registering a carbon project, to the operationalisation of methodologies and standard-setting initiatives by Gold Standard.

“This will support BCX as it expands the offering of carbon credits from both local and international carbon projects,” said Bursa Malaysia in a statement today.

Bursa Malaysia chief executive officer Datuk Muhamad Umar Swift said the broadening of offerings on BCX will support the country’s transition to a lower carbon economy.

“This MOU signing is timely as we aim to expand BCX’s trading platform to include Gold Standard-certified carbon credits from next year onward.

“With the adoption of both leading international carbon credit standards – Verra and Gold Standard – on BCX, we will open our marketplace to more carbon project developers and methodologies, which aligns with our role of facilitating access to a wider range of high-quality carbon credits,” he said.

BCX has also inked a memorandum of collaboration (MOC) with Sarawak Energy Bhd (SEB), Hydropower Sustainability Alliance, and the I-REC Standard Foundation to pave the way for the offering of renewable energy certificates (RECs) on BCX.

According to Muhamad Umar, BCX aspires to be a global, multi-asset environmental products exchange, to meet the diverse needs of its customers.

“By adding RECs to our existing portfolio of high-quality carbon credits, we aim to provide more options and flexibility for our customers to access and trade environmental products. Today, our partners and BCX have formalised this collaboration to promote the trading of hydropower RECs on BCX, targeted to be launched next year,” he added.

Muhamad Umar said BCX is planning to offer RECs from projects that comply with the I-REC Standard.

“This MOC demonstrates our commitment to collaborate with international and domestic partners to advance climate action and support the transition to net zero,” he said. – BK