ICF Consulting Launches Proprietary Carbon Credit Project Risk Evaluation System and a Guide to Carbon Procurement Vehicles

MONTREAL, CANADA―ICF Consulting announced today that it has launched two innovative products, a CDM and JI Project Risk Evaluation System and a Guide to Carbon Procurement Vehicles, for investors interested in participating as buyers or sellers in the global carbon markets. This announcement was made today at Carbon Finance Day at the 1st Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol in Montreal. ICF Consulting’s comprehensive Guide to Carbon Procurement Vehicles provides detailed analysis of 37 different vehicles and is a must read for those interested in investing in carbon markets as well as sellers trying to secure the best returns for their projects. The proprietary evaluation system quantifies the risks associated with Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Joint Implementation (JI) projects by evaluating and ranking projects in a portfolio.

ICF Consulting’s Guide to Carbon Procurement Vehicles shows that the past 12 months have seen a rapid maturation of carbon markets with transactions of carbon allowances and credits worth more than €5 billion. “Our analysis estimates that more than €3.3 billion of capital has already been committed to 37 carbon purchase vehicles, and our latest forecast is that the global carbon market will grow to €23 billion by 2010. The carbon market faces a significant imbalance between the supply and demand of credits, and the challenge for market participants is to source high-quality, low-risk carbon credits from financially stable counter-parties,” says Abyd Karmali, ICF Consulting’s director of European climate strategy services in London.

“With the increased complexity of the market, participants need to improve their capacity to assess risks and returns from carbon credit projects and to evaluate the plethora of new carbon purchase vehicles (funds, facilities, and government procurement programmes) on offer. The ability of investors to accurately identify and quantify the different kinds of risks associated with individual projects will be a key determinant of success,” says Mr. Karmali.

“Our proprietary CDM and JI Project Risk Evaluation System has been developed over the past few years as we have helped large emitters around the world evaluate their own portfolios and undertake due diligence on more than 300 potential CDM and JI projects,” says Duncan Rotherham, an ICF Consulting climate change expert based in Toronto. “We recently have used the system to evaluate a carbon credit project developer’s portfolio of more than 100 projects as the company prepared for a listing on London’s AIM Stock Exchange. Our analysis provided investors with a robust risk-adjusted forecast of the quantity of carbon credits to be delivered and enabled all parties to develop a more realistic valuation of the company’s balance sheet,” says Mr. Rotherham.

About ICF Consulting
ICF Consulting (http://www.icfconsulting.com) is a leading management, technology, and policy consulting firm. Drawing upon extensive industry knowledge, distinguished professionals, and innovative analytics, the firm develops solutions to complex defense, homeland security, social programme, energy, environment, and transportation issues. ICF Consulting’s approach to these issues is strengthened by its expertise in information technology, organisational improvement, research and evaluation, programme management, and communications. Since 1969, ICF Consulting has been serving major corporations, government at all levels, and multinational institutions. More than 1,500 employees serve these clients in the Americas, Asia, and Europe.