Regulated and voluntary carbon markets: perspectives and business opportunities

The lecture focused on the analysis of carbon markets, both regulated and voluntary, in order to offer a perspective on future scenarios, with particular reference to the European Trading System (EU ETS) and recent regulatory developments concerning some important industrial sectors.

Additionally we addressed issues related to opportunities for companies in developing offset projects aimed at generating carbon credits.

About the speaker

Simone Borghesi is full professor of political economy at the University of Siena. He is president-elect of the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (EAERE) and director of FSR Climate, the climate change research unit of the Robert Schuman Center of the European University Institute (EUI).

He has won numerous national and international research projects on environmental issues; his research concerns globalization and sustainable development, the functioning of the European Emission Trading System, and eco-innovation.

Interview with Simone Borghesi

C-TAKEAWAYS: Fast facts for the C-level

• Carbon markets keep evolving, following global changes while also shaping their national and international contexts.
• The present and future state of carbon markets may foster and depend on geo-political cooperation.
• Carbon prices have been fluctuating and they are expected to keep growing in tandem with climate ambitions.
• Higher prices are likely to have regressive effects and cause a delocalization of the production process, but also increase revenues to address those regressive effects within and across countries.
• Invest on training, a good communication strategy and clean technologies or mitigating techniques that reduce your emissions.
• Climate neutrality requires negative emissions technologies, and this opens the door to voluntary carbon markets and carbon credits.