28 May 2014, IISD news - Forest Trends' Ecosystem Marketplace has released its 2014  round-up of where voluntary carbon markets stand globally. The report, titled  'Sharing the Stage: State of the Voluntary Carbon Markets 2014,' finds that  while US$379 million were invested in carbon offsets in 2013, this total fell  short of 2012 levels by 26.7%, or US$144 million. However, according to Forest  Trends, many of these tons were still transacted, but under compliance regimes,  rather than voluntarily.

According to the report, 90% of 2013 offset purchases came from companies  that have purchased offsets in the past. Corporations such as Chevrolet, Marks & Spencer and Allianz bought enough offsets to avoid/sequester 76 million  tons of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Offsets were derived from a range of  environmental projects, from wind energy to avoided deforestation to clean  cookstoves. The average price per ton dropped by 16% over 2012 to US$4.90.

European organizations were the largest source of voluntary buyers, which  purchased 28 million tons of carbon offsets in 2013. This total was 36% short of  the 2012 figure, a drop that was attributed to slow economic recovery and a  pessimistic outlook for Europe's regulatory carbon market. Projects that  prevented deforestation (REDD+) were the largest source of offsets, with 22.6  million tons sold (compared to 8.6 million tons in 2012). These transactions  represented a record for forest conservation projects, driven by an agreement  between the German development bank KfW and the Brazilian State of Acre.

Forest Trends is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting forest  conservation by "convening market players to advance market transformations,  generating and disseminating critical information to market players, and  facilitating deals between different critical links in the value chains of new  forestry." Ecosystem Marketplace is a Forest Trends initiative that provides  news, data and information on markets and payments for ecosystem services.

Source: http://forests-l.iisd.org/news/forest-trends-releases-state-of-the-voluntary-carbon-markets-2014/