Barclays: helping London lead in carbon finance
London is the global centre of carbon trading, being the location of over 75% of all carbon market trading desks and housing 80% of all carbon market brokering firms.
The
strength of its financial sector and venture capital activity has
made London home to over 75-AIM listed clean technology
companies, while in 2008 in excess of £19bn was invested in global
renewable projects and companies by London-based banks.
Based in the heart of the City, the European Climate Exchange was launched in April 2005 and quickly became the mostliquid carbon market place in Europe with more than 90 global businesses signing up to trade emissions products, serving several thousand clients around the world. In 2008 annual volumes increased 170% to 2.8 billion tonnes, a figure that was already surpassed in the first four months of 2009.
The first UK bank to set up a dedicated carbon trading desk in
2004, Barclays remains one of the most active players in the
emissions trading market, having traded over 1.4 billion tonnes of
credits to date.6 In addition to facilitating market access and
trading, Barclays provides debt and equity finance for emission
reduction projects around the world, helping carbon reduction
projects that would otherwise be unprofitable. An important enabler
for Barclays in embracing this new market was having an
organisational culture supportive of innovation. In seeking new
opportunities Barclays focused on building on existing strengths.
With Barclays Capital a leader in the provision
of financial and commodity risk management, extending into
emissions trading was a good fit with existing capabilities.
