The Markit Environmental Registry is essentially a depository for carbon, acting as the gateway to the carbon market providing transparency and traceability for participants in the market.

Account holders can range from project developers, governments, corporates, traders, individuals and non-commercial organizations.

How the registry works

The Markit Environmental Registry is the hub of the transactional carbon market. For project developers, asset managers, and standards-based issuers, the entry of credits onto the Markit Environmental Registry gives them a unique identifier and converts a verified carbon reduction into a saleable emission unit.

The system then enables the transfer of credits between sellers and buyers (carbon asset managers, traders, retailers. corporates, NGOs, individuals and governments). Finally, at end point, customers can retire their credits into their own retirement account on the Registry. Built to ensure inward flow only, the retirement account for each customer is the tool by which an account holder can illustrate the necessary credits have been purchased and removed from circulation. At any time, customers can obtain reports, statements and transactional movements of their accounts.

The Markit Environmental Registry enables transacting in high quality voluntary carbon credits (i.e. the commoditised asset class of carbon). The infrastructure:

• offers full reporting, transparency and traceability for credits from origin
• ensures that the same credit cannot be 'used' twice
• enables reservation of carbon ready for transfer, settlement of trades on exchange and, importantly, delivery of carbon at the same time as delivery of cash (Delivery versus Payment)
• supports secondary trading, which is critical to create price transparency, enabling behavioral changes and investments.
• enables companies to retire credits permanently through a credible, externally audited retirement facility