A new joint venture has launched to help countries enhance carbon mitigation efforts under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. This partnership includes various technology and sustainability firms. They aim to build digital systems and tools for a carbon mitigation pipeline worth over US$100 billion. This funding focuses on forest and nature-based internationally transferred mitigation outcomes (ITMOs). Article 6 outlines rules for global cooperation on climate action through carbon markets.
The collaboration will help governments track emissions cuts. It will also verify climate actions and share mitigation results clearly. It will also develop digital infrastructure to promote high-integrity carbon credits and environmental assets across regions like Africa, South America, the Middle East, and Asia.
What the Joint Venture Will Do
The joint venture includes three partners with distinct expertise:
- Aleria: A specialist in artificial intelligence (AI) and data.
- Tawasal: A UAE-based super app platform.
- Xange.com: An environmental intelligence software provider.
They will work together to build digital systems for carbon accounting and ITMO transfers. This will help governments and project developers. Their tools include monitoring, reporting, and verification (dMRV) systems to capture verified mitigation data. They will also introduce a global infrastructure solution called GEMIS for policy-aligned project management.
A central registry and settlement platform will enable countries to track and transfer mitigation outcomes. This system will help governments manage carbon mitigation results from international trade. It follows the rules of Article 6 and will have a financial custodian bank in Chicago to host and oversee the settlement system.
The joint venture will connect its systems to millions of users through Tawasal’s platform. This includes payment systems from partners like Gnosis and Noxxo. They support transactions across different regions.
Eric Leandri, CEO of Aleria and Tawasal remarked during the Davos announcement:
“Article 6 requires governments to operate credible registries, data systems, and settlement processes under national authority. This joint venture focuses on delivering the technical infrastructure needed to support compliant accounting, monitoring, and transfer of mitigation outcomes. By combining Aleria’s sovereign data capabilities, Tawasal’s digital platform, and Xange.com’s market infrastructure, we are enabling countries to implement Article 6 mechanisms in line with Paris Agreement requirements.”
Why Article 6 Needs Strong Digital Infrastructure
Article 6 of the Paris Agreement provides a framework for countries to work together on emissions reductions. It has three main parts:
- Article 6.2: Rules for accounting and trading of ITMOs.
- Article 6.4: A new mechanism for high-quality carbon credits and emissions reductions.
- Article 6.8: Non-market methods for climate action without trading emissions units.
Article 6 allows countries and companies to collaborate by transferring emissions reductions across borders. These transfers count toward climate targets known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). A strong digital tracking system is essential to prevent errors like double-counting.
International carbon market cooperation under Article 6 is growing. For instance, Singapore signed an agreement with Papua New Guinea in 2023. This deal enables the two countries to generate and trade carbon credits toward their climate targets.
African nations, like Rwanda, are also preparing to engage with Article 6 mechanisms and carbon markets. They are developing national frameworks and enhancing institutional capacity.
Countries like Indonesia and Norway are participating in Article 6 cooperation as well. At COP30, they talked about carbon trading deals. These could involve up to 90 million tonnes of CO₂ reductions. So far, 12.5 million tonnes are already committed.
These developments highlight the need for strong registry systems and verification infrastructure for effective international climate cooperation.
- SEE MORE: Billions at Stake: UN Panel’s Article 6.4 Recommendation Could Transform Global Carbon Trading
Digital MRV and Registries: The Market’s Missing Link
Successful carbon markets depend on accurate data and transparent tracking. The joint venture’s digital tools will help countries meet Article 6 requirements for emissions accounting. Key components include:
- dMRV tools: Capture verified emissions data and spot environmental risks.
- ITMO registry: A platform for recording, authorizing, and transferring mitigation outcomes.
- Settlement systems: Secure systems for transferring and ensuring transparency.
These tools are crucial because accurate tracking of mitigation outcomes is a requirement under Article 6. Countries must show that carbon credits or ITMOs represent real reductions. Without reliable systems, countries can’t trust transfers to meet climate goals.
This project helps build the Article 6 registry infrastructure by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). In 2026, the UN started building systems to track mitigation outcomes. This includes international registries that help national systems work together to enhance transparency and confidence in carbon markets.
Global Momentum Behind Article 6 Cooperation
The JV has identified a pipeline of over US$100 billion in forest and nature-based outcomes aligned with the Paris Agreement. This figure reflects the projected value of various mitigation activities eligible for Article 6 cooperation.
Article 6 cooperation could unlock both private and public funding for climate mitigation. For example, Singapore started a public tender for at least 0.5 million metric tons of high-quality, nature-based carbon credits under Article 6. This is part of Singapore’s plan to reduce emissions to about 60 million metric tons of CO₂ equivalent by 2030. It estimates needing around 2.51 million metric tons of ITMOs annually from 2021 to 2030 to meet its targets.
Countries are also establishing bilateral and multilateral cooperation on Article 6. For instance, Zambia signed a cooperation agreement with Switzerland at COP30 in 2025 to set up frameworks for trading carbon credits. This deal aims to support climate mitigation projects and financing in Zambia.
Market analysts note that over 120 countries are willing to use Article 6 instruments for their NDCs. These countries recognize that cooperation can lower costs by allowing more effective climate action. Capacity-building programs under the UN Environment Programme aim to help developing countries engage in international carbon markets.
Integrity, Regulation, Risks, and Market Outlook
While interest in Article 6 markets is strong, challenges remain. Some project developers have raised concerns about retroactive changes to market rules. Standards bodies, like the Gold Standard, suggest new alignment requirements for Paris compliance. Developers warn that applying these rules retroactively could create uncertainty for existing projects. Stable rules are crucial for long-term investment in mitigation.
Another challenge is ensuring the integrity of mitigation outcomes. Countries and buyers need assurance that carbon credits or ITMOs reflect real emissions reductions. Article 6 systems aim to minimize risks like overestimation, but more work is needed as markets evolve.
Despite these challenges, the market outlook for Article 6 cooperation is substantial. Projections from the University of Maryland and IETA estimate over $100 billion in annual trading by 2030. This matches wider industry forecasts. The CAREC Program sees Article 6 boosting the carbon market to $250 billion.
Also, Oxford Energy Studies expects annual demand to exceed 700 MtCO₂e. This demand is driven by NDC gaps and the growth of bilateral ITMO.
What This JV Signals for Future Carbon Markets
The new joint venture aims to support a US$100 billion carbon mitigation pipeline under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. It will help countries create digital systems for tracking, reporting, and transferring ITMOs.
Creating registries, using digital monitoring, and ensuring secure settlement systems are key to building trust in carbon markets. Governments and markets are already building capacity. An increase in bilateral agreements and registry infrastructure indicates stronger adoption ahead.
The joint venture’s pipeline estimate signals significant investment potential in forestry and nature-based mitigation. While challenges exist, the emerging Article 6 ecosystem aims to unlock funding that helps countries meet climate goals with integrity and transparency.
The post $100B at Stake: New Joint Venture Builds Digital Backbone for Article 6 Carbon Markets appeared first on Carbon Credits.
The accounting differences that decide whether your nature investment shows up in inventory, in BVCM, or nowhere at all.
The question reaches a procurement team about three weeks before the next sustainability committee meeting. Someone has read about insetting. Someone else has just signed off on an offset purchase. The CSO wants to know if the two are interchangeable. The answer is no, and the GHG Protocol Land Sector and Removals Standard is the reason why.
This article walks through what each term means at audit-grade specificity, what the standards actually say about how each gets counted, and how to decide which tool fits which target. The insetting vs offsetting question is one of the most-searched in corporate climate strategy, and one of the most poorly answered. By the end of this piece, you should be able to brief a committee on the difference without notes.
The two definitions, in plain English
Offsetting means buying carbon credits generated outside your value chain and retiring them against your residual emissions. The reduction happens somewhere else, financed by you, and the credit is the receipt.
Insetting means investing in emission reductions or removals inside your own value chain, typically with suppliers, where the reduction is directly linked to the products and services you buy. The reduction happens inside the boundary of your Scope 3 inventory, and the accounting treatment is fundamentally different.
The shorthand from the University of Oxford’s Nature-based Insetting Initiative is useful: insetting is what you do with the supply chain you have; offsetting is what you do with the supply chain you do not have.
What the GHG Protocol Land Sector Standard actually says
The GHG Protocol Land Sector and Removals Standard, finalised in 2024 after a multi-year pilot, sets the rules for how land-based emission reductions and removals enter corporate inventories. The Standard distinguishes between inventory accounting (Scope 1, 2, and 3) and project or intervention accounting (a separate methodology for crediting).
For insetting, the practical implication is that supplier-level interventions, when properly measured and attributed, can reduce your Scope 3 category 1 (purchased goods and services) emissions in your inventory. The reduction is not a credit retired against the inventory; it is a lower inventory number, period.
For offsetting, the credit is retired separately. It can be reported as a contribution toward a net-zero claim under the SBTi Beyond Value Chain Mitigation framework or as part of a VCMI Carbon Integrity claim, but it does not lower the inventory number.
A practical consequence: if your Science Based Target requires a 50% absolute reduction in Scope 3 emissions by 2030, insetting moves you toward the target. Offsetting does not. This single point of difference reshapes the procurement decision.
When insetting counts toward Scope 3 (and when it does not)
Insetting counts toward Scope 3 only when several conditions are met:
- The intervention must occur with an entity in your value chain.
- The emissions reduction or removal must be measured against a defensible baseline.
- The reduction must be attributed to your share of that supplier’s output, not double-counted with other buyers.
- It must follow the inventory accounting rules in the GHG Protocol Land Sector Standard, not the project accounting rules used to generate credits.
The most common failure mode is double counting. If your supplier sells the same reduction as a credit on the voluntary market and also reports it to you as a Scope 3 reduction, the math breaks. The Standard requires you to address this risk, typically by purchasing and retiring the supplier-issued credit as part of your inventory or by contractual provisions that prevent the supplier from selling the reduction twice.
When insetting does not count toward Scope 3: when the intervention sits with a supplier you do not buy from, when the baseline is not defensible, when the attribution is unclear, or when the documentation does not survive audit. Those cases default to Beyond Value Chain Mitigation, which is still useful but operates on a different ledger.
The procurement and supplier engagement question
Insetting is harder than offsetting. That is the unfashionable truth most buyers eventually confront. Offsetting is a transaction; insetting is a relationship.
To run an insetting program, you need supplier mapping precise enough to know which farms or facilities sit at which Scope 3 boundary. You need an engagement model that gets suppliers to participate, which usually requires multi-year commitments and shared economics. You need an MRV architecture that measures the right things and produces audit-ready documentation. And you need a contractual structure that prevents double counting and protects both sides.
The trade-off you receive in return is significant. Reductions count against your inventory rather than your residual. Supplier relationships deepen, which protects sourcing continuity. Yield and quality improvements often follow regenerative interventions, which reduces your input cost over time. And the regulatory file, under CSRD, CSDDD, EUDR, and the SBTi FLAG Guidance, is materially stronger.
Choosing the right tool for the right target
A practical decision rule. If your target is a science-based Scope 3 reduction and you operate in a FLAG sector or source FLAG commodities, insetting is the structurally correct tool. If your target is a net-zero claim that includes neutralising hard-to-abate residual emissions outside your value chain, BVCM via high-integrity offsets is the structurally correct tool. Most companies with material Scope 3 exposure need both, in different proportions, sequenced over time.
The sequencing matters. Insetting takes longer to stand up but produces a permanent reduction in the inventory. Offsetting can be transacted faster but does not change the inventory and now sits under tighter claim restrictions. Treat them as complementary tools with different jobs, not as substitutes. The Accountability Framework Initiative and the IUCN Global Standard for Nature-based Solutions both provide useful guardrails for the insetting side, with biodiversity, human rights, and benefit-sharing requirements that go beyond carbon math.
If you are mapping a Scope 3 reduction roadmap and need to scope which interventions count toward your inventory versus which sit in Beyond Value Chain Mitigation, the carbon and sustainability experts at Carbon Credit Capital can help you structure a nature-based supply chain investment program that fits your FLAG exposure, your target architecture, and your audit horizon. Schedule a consultation.
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