27 March: US investment bank JPMorgan has bought ClimateCare, one of the oldest carbon offset providers, to strengthen its carbon credit origination business.
The two parties did not disclose the value of the transaction, but it will see UK-based ClimateCare’s 40 staff around the world joining JPMorgan’s 11-strong environmental markets team. The US bank will assume ClimateCare’s portfolio of projects, origination capacity and existing book of business.
As part of the acquisition, ClimateCare’s project sourcing arm, Pioneer Carbon, will become part of the newly combined business. The group will initially operate under both the JPMorgan and ClimateCare brand names.
Mike Mason, founder of ClimateCare, said: “After building up this business for over a decade, becoming part of JPMorgan is exactly what ClimateCare needs in order to grow rapidly and achieve its goal of having the biggest impact possible in tackling climate change.”
ClimateCare, which counts flooring manufacturer Interface, Land Rover and the UK’s major political parties among its clients, specialises in supplying carbon offsets to the voluntary market. It has a particular focus on higher-quality projects with a social component in addition to their emissions reduction potential.
However, it has been moving into the mandatory markets, developing projects that qualify under the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). According a ClimateCare spokesman, the company has a pipeline of some 8 to 10 million tonnes of carbon dioxide or equivalent, all accredited “to leading standards”, such as the Gold Standard, the Voluntary Carbon Standard and the CDM.
The company, which is based in Oxford, UK, has field offices in Kenya, Turkey, Mauritius and Chile.
Updated 27 March 2008
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