KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia Bhd
's subsidiary Bursa Carbon Exchange (BCX) has carried out its first Malaysian Carbon Credit auction with carbon credits from the Kuamut Rainforest Conservation Project in Sabah.
In a statement, the stock exchange operator said the auction attracted participation from businesses and organisations committed to reduce their environmental impact through several credible pathways, one of them by offsetting hard to abate GHG emissions through carbon credits.
The auction of the domestic forest protection and regeneration project was cleared at RM50 per contract.
According to Bursa Malaysia, the Kuamut Project has earned international recognition and is rated best in class, as one of the highest-rated improved forest management (IFM) projects in the world by the carbon rating agency BeZero Carbon.
“It has been a long wait for Malaysia to finally witness the auction of the country’s first domestically produced quality carbon credits,” said Bursa Malaysia CEO Datuk Muhamad Umar Swift, adding that the organic growth of the voluntary carbon market will take time to mature.
His observation was based on the voluntary renewable energy certificates (RECs) market where organic growth of a nascent market took at least five years to scale.
Given the complexity of some carbon project implementation compared to renewable energy projects, the carbon market can face a longer lead time to reach the same stage of growth as RECs market, especially when nature-based projects are involved.
“A critical step to accelerate the development of domestic carbon projects is to adopt some form of compliance carbon market," he added.
