Biorecro sat with Callum Hunt from Abatable, a carbon procurement and market intelligence company. As Research Manager, Hunt conducts the due diligence on potential carbon offset projects by looking into the nuances of each technology, methodology, and implementation partner. With expertise in several removal methodologies, including soil carbon, CSS, and BECCS, Hunt, along with the Abatable team, continually searches for high-quality carbon projects to include within Abatable clients’ portfolios.
Can you briefly explain the role Abatable plays in the carbon market?
Abatable is a carbon intelligence and procurement platform. We provide market intelligence products for corporates and investors to understand the quality and market trends in the carbon markets. We focus on providing insights on sources of risks and inform investors on country policy profiles, the nuances between the different types of carbon offset, the difference in pricing, the difference in project-specific risks, the difference in the available methodologies, and how they serve as a proxy for and impact quality.
We have also developed a procurement platform where we streamline the process for corporate buyers to access supply by standardizing their requests for proposals (RFPs) through a technology platform, helping buyers to see what projects are out there and how to build a portfolio that’s suitable for their needs. We then support buyers in identifying high-quality options by leveraging our proprietary quality assessment framework. We use that to screen the projects and see how they stack up, and then we can provide robust insights to investors and buyers.
We’ve managed to avoid any conflict of interest because we don’t take any fees from the developers when it comes to our procurement platform. There’s no conflicting interest in the reviews to push one project over another. I think that’s important in this space to maintain trust as well as to make sure that you don’t have any bias towards one project or another because of the business model.
Does Abatable focus on specific kinds of carbon projects?
We engage with any type of carbon project, across both engineered and nature-based avoidance and removal, and even look into projects that are very early in their carbon market maturity. Soil carbon has been around for a while, but some of the newer technologies we engage with are enhanced rock weathering (ERW) or soil biomineralization, which are established in terms of the science but very new in terms of voluntary carbon markets and available methodologies.
As the buyers are increasingly more focused on supporting carbon removal projects, we have increasingly started to map the space beyond the more established project types, such as IFM, REDD+, and other nature-based projects, and have created a platform that allows developers to submit projects in more emerging carbon removal / engineered solutions.
How does Abatable define high-quality carbon projects if you work with both engineered removals and nature-based removals?
We leverage a proprietary quality assessment framework and our in-house team of experts to determine the quality of projects across different levels – mainly at the methodology, country, and project implementation levels. We then look at the project across key quality pillars such as (i) evidence of additionality, (ii) mitigation of non-permanence risks, (iii) robustness of GHG emissions, (iv) co-benefits, and other project-type level risks.
We believe that quality is nuanced, and we don’t aggregate our view in a single rating or score. Some of the rating options out there provide a single rating, and it can be challenging to distill the differences between two ratings if they’re identical. They might have gotten to the same score for completely different reasons.
"Our framework breaks it down into five key pillars, which are additionality, permanence, mitigating external risks, co-benefits, and robust determination of GHG emissions. We provide nuance into the different aspects where some projects may perform better than others."
Some of the nature-based projects may perform very well on co-benefits, while some of the engineered solutions may perform better on the robust determination of GHG emissions just by the mere fact that they are developed in a more controlled environment.
We have a white paper published on that process and transparently share our proprietary framework.
Abatable has its own quality framework, how are the carbon removal projects vetted?
Our quality framework thoroughly vets each carbon removal project on multiple factors – not just assessing the technology and project but also closely evaluating the developer behind it.
This includes assessing technology risk against factors such as innovation potential, technology maturity, and uncertainty of more nascent value chains. Equally important is examining the potential co-benefits projects can provide, such as job creation for green roles or waste heat utilization, and the feedstock sustainability, and potential alternative usage pathways, such as whether biomass resources could be better utilized for biochar production vs BECCS in some cases.
Assessing the developer is also key—from the expertise within the engineering team to their investor backing. As many removal solutions require substantial investor backing to scale responsibly, we must evaluate financing and funding security. Many engineered removal developers are early-stage startups with little revenue, making investor support crucial for survival—robust financing can determine the difference between a temporary carbon removal pilot and an enduring, high-impact contribution. We analyze investor confidence, access to capital, and overall financial stability to determine scalability and commercial viability pathways.
By taking a weighted, holistic approach across these areas rather than over-indexing on any one factor, our quality framework identifies any red flags early while thoroughly vetting high-potential carbon removal projects and developers. This allows us to analyze overall viability, impact goals, and responsible scaling capacity – providing pivotal insights beyond individual project assessments.
The carbon marketplace can be complex, with various standards and certification systems. How do you navigate these challenges and provide clarity to both buyers and sellers on your platform?
We have a dedicated origination team that engages mostly with developers. They typically go through our services with developers, explaining to them what the platform does and how it works. It’s ultimately to try and direct relevant RFP opportunities in their direction. They can then upload their project information, and we show them how to do that. Thanks to our engineering and design team, we’ve done extensive user testing to make sure our platform is straightforward in the way that developers need to engage with it.
On the buyer side, we also have a business development team, which focuses on the demand side of the market, taking buyers through the process of how to use the platform and supporting them from the start right towards the end.
At the moment, we try to keep it as simple as possible, and one of our core values is transparency by default. We’re always trying to make sure that there’s no ambiguity as to what’s happening and what the business model is.
Are there currently any BECCS projects available through Abatable?
Yes, we have seen interest from clients for removal options and have received submissions for BECCS projects in the past. We also encourage developers to join our network to help them access finance, gain market insights, distribute carbon credits, and arrange long-term offtakes. This goes for BECCS project developers, as well as many others.
Abatable released an Index that rates countries’ voluntary carbon market readiness. What were the findings?
The purpose of the Abatable VCM Attractiveness Index was to evaluate and rank countries on the attractiveness of their voluntary carbon market investment and development opportunities, using indicators reflecting national economic, political, and environmental conditions. The report investigated the readiness of countries to engage with Article 6 and their ability to be forward-thinking when it comes to how they’ll integrate corresponding adjustments under Article 6.4 and how everything will get tied together. The Index will be updated and launched annually and will aim to show how policy change affects countries’ voluntary carbon market landscape.
A key finding is that while carbon removal projects are developed in developed economies like Europe and North America, which have low to minimal political risks, some of these regions lack developed carbon-related policies and have had limited engagements with the Article 6 developments, as they have been focused on a domestic de-carbonization agenda. We see biochar and BECCS as part of that development.
Kenya, Mexico, and Peru were shown as the three leading countries for investment and development. What are these three countries doing right?
We look at how well-defined the carbon rights are and if Article 6 implementation is a priority. We have many factors that we assess and score based on that and provide commentary.
With Kenya in particular, the government passed the Climate Change Amendment Act, introducing provisions on the policy direction on the carbon markets, establishing a benefit-sharing rule, and announcing the establishment of the National Carbon Registry. There have been some real proactive measures that could lead to potential positive outcomes in the long term.
Our attractiveness index does not necessarily rank favorably a country that is doing everything perfectly; there may still be a few things that can be improved. But in some of the ones we’ve looked at, I think it shows that there’s historical openness to developing an enabling carbon markets policy landscape. Kenya has a rich history in forest conservation and carbon markets from cookstove developers and has a lot of projects active in that space. I’m also seeing a real sort of growth in CDR from Kenya as well, with companies like Octavia Carbon, a DAC developer in Kenya. It’s awesome to see.
Where do you see the Voluntary Carbon Market in the future? What changes and progress do you hope to see?
In terms of progress, it would be great to see continued focus on scalability. We track a lot of the investment that’s going into the carbon market space. It’s always good to see when the investment is increasing. But all the markets need to scale. The removal market needs to scale at the most rapid pace because those residual emissions will need to be removed somehow, and that market is our best avenue.
I’d like to see the market scaling, and I think that’s the key thing and probably a shared theme that many people would emphasize: We have growth. We see valuable contributions coming from the carbon markets to mitigate and find sustainable transitions. Sometimes, even with decarbonization, it can be a more effective mechanism to start in the carbon markets, where we can then identify high-quality projects and scale out those solutions.
In terms of what’s feasible, it really depends on the policy interaction and how much of an enabling environment the carbon markets are given.
- How quickly will we define how corresponding adjustments will work?
- How will countries better connect their NDCs and allow the transfer of ITMOs?
I’m hoping to see more and more developments in those spaces.
When it comes to your buyers, is there like a certain sector that you see that is more interested in buying credits than others?
A key insight from our perspective is that the industry really informs the budget. When it comes to the operating profits relative to the number of emissions of a company, tech-based companies have far higher budgets. They’re closer to that social cost of carbon, up near the $160-170 per tonne price point.
Whereas some of these larger sectors, like the transport industry, for example, may have lower operating revenue to emissions ratios, which means that their achievable dollar-per-tonne budget is lower. When it’s a tech-based company, and it is entirely voluntary, there are no necessary regulatory components for them to offset any emissions at this point in time. So, they may not even be looking for a volume-based approach, but they might be looking to make a climate contribution and see what impact they can have by supporting higher-priced solutions, hopefully helping them down their long-term cost curves.
