New Carbon Project Developer to Bring Clean Cooking, Nature-Based Solutions, and Methane Avoidance Projects to Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia
Executive Leadership Team Brings Deep, Global Expertise Across Climate Change Mitigation Strategies, Carbon Accounting, Sustainable Project Development, and Operations
Deeply Committed to Operating with the Highest Standards of Quality, Integrity, and Transparency, Using Best-in-Class Carbon Methodologies, Radical Transparency, and Robust Governance Controls to Ensure Credits Issued Accurately Reflect Carbon Reductions Achieved
Established as a Leader in Catalyzing the Ongoing Maturation of the Voluntary Carbon Markets
Bridge Carbon (the "Company") today announced the launch of its business as a carbon project developer empowering the most vulnerable communities to address climate change and drive sustainable development. The Company launches with a portfolio of 1.5 million deployed clean cookstoves across Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, as well as economic rights to a methane gas repair project in Bangladesh, which were acquired from C-Quest Capital LLC ("C-Quest"). Bridge Carbon acquired only high-quality, viably operating cookstoves from C-Quest's portfolio following a comprehensive review of its projects, including by the carbon crediting registry Verra. Bridge Carbon is also expanding its business through the ongoing development of nature-based solutions ("NbS") carbon removal programs, as well as a new generation of urban, peri-urban, and high efficiency rural cookstove projects.
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Core to Bridge Carbon's mission is its commitment to building a world-class carbon finance organization that defines the standards for quality, integrity, and transparency across the voluntary carbon markets. The Company utilizes best-in-class carbon methodologies, as well as third-party digital monitoring, reporting, and verification ("dMRV") processes to ensure that every tonne of carbon credits created can be traced directly to reductions achieved by the Company's carbon removal activities. Bridge Carbon's disciplined approach to developing and maintaining its cookstove and NbS projects which includes Bridge Carbon teams on the ground working closely with local stakeholders and small-holder farmers enables the Company to accelerate project development, maximize carbon removals, and deliver meaningful carbon reduction benefits to communities as well as to regional governments and international buyers of carbon credits.
Bridge Carbon is led by Chief Executive Officer Jules Kortenhorst, the former CEO of RMI and the European Climate Foundation and a recognized leader on global energy issues and climate change. Mr. Kortenhorst is supported by a leadership team with deep, global expertise across climate change mitigation strategies, carbon accounting, sustainable project development, and large-scale operations management. The team includes Chief Carbon Officer Dr. Donee Alexander, former Chief Science and Learning Officer of the Clean Cooking Alliance; Chief Operating Officer Audrey Davin, a former operations executive at several multinational corporations; Chief Financial Officer John Sadler; Chief Transformation Officer Julian Parkin; Chief Legal Counsel Jolie Norris; Head of NbS Dr. Margot Clarvis; and Head of Global Cookstoves Bhaskar Nath, among others.
Mr. Kortenhorst said: "A transparent, high-integrity global carbon market is essential to solving the climate crisis and improving the livelihoods of the world's most vulnerable communities. We believe there is an enormous opportunity for Bridge Carbon to provide high-quality carbon credits to this market by developing and implementing cutting-edge carbon reduction projects and operating our portfolio of historical assets under our new, rigorous methodologies and measurement processes. Bridge Carbon's vital work pairs our team's proven capability of arranging A6 transactions with host countries and international buyers of credits with best-in-class corporate governance and high-quality carbon reduction projects operated in partnership with community stakeholders."
Bridge Carbon has developed and implemented a carbon accounting and management system of the highest integrity that is underpinned by robust methodologies, processes, and governance checks and balances. This system includes:
Structured Project Development Processes
- Developing a structured approach to determining ideation, baseline evaluation, project design, documentation, and validation processes for all projects to ensure high-quality output for all project beneficiaries.
- Integrating qualitative, quantitative, and sociological evaluation into the earliest steps of project development on the ground prior to registration.
Methodologies
- Adopting the Comprehensive Lowered Emissions Assessment and Reporting (CLEAR) methodology the most rigorous and conservative scientifically-based methodology for clean cooking programs to date developed by the Clean Cooking and Climate Consortium (4C) and the Clean Cooking Alliance.
- Utilizing the latest AFOLU methodologies developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) across the Company's NbS programs to measure performance benchmarks and baseline control plots, rather than relying on estimates to determine baselines.
Independent Digital Monitoring and Direct Fuel Measurement
- Implementing comprehensive third-party dMRV processes across all cookstove projects.
- Conducting Kitchen Performance Tests the gold standard for measuring cookstove fuel consumption to directly measure baseline fuel consumption across all cookstove projects, rather than relying on global estimates or back calculation methods.
- Having third-party dMRV providers create the Company's random project sampling pools with sample sizes well above a 95/5 confidence interval and enabling providers to pass measurement data directly to VVBs for verification.
Proprietary Carbon Accounting Systems
- Recording all carbon project survey and measurement results within a proprietary digital carbon management system, DISCO.
- Integrating digitized surveys for recording field visit, adoption, and survival rate data for all of the Company's projects within DISCO.
- Building a robust internal data system to conduct spot audits across all of the Company's carbon reduction programs, flag data points outside scientifically conservative ranges, and provide real-time measurement reporting figures.
Corporate Governance
- Introducing best-in-class corporate governance and financial controls infrastructure, including separating internal quality control authorities from the Company's carbon project operations responsibilities.
- Establishing an internal whistleblower hotline for any integrity-related issues.
Transparency
- Committing to provide complete, transparent carbon accounting data to all customers and beneficiaries via the Centigrade platform to ensure the Company's carbon credits always reflect its projects' true reduction impacts.
Dr. Alexander commented: "It is a crucial time for the carbon markets and climate finance. The need for transparent and reliable outcomes that demonstrate the true impact of carbon project development has never been more important. Bridge Carbon has created a state-of-the-art carbon accounting program to ensure that we operate with the highest possible level of integrity such that every tonne of carbon created by the Company as a credit always reflects a tonne of carbon we have reduced from the atmosphere. It is our hope that the policies we are putting in place at Bridge Carbon today set a new industry standard for the benefit of all VCM participants."
Ms. Davin added: "Across the countries in which we operate, it is our teams on the ground comprised entirely of local talent whose operational excellence, passion, and purpose fuel Bridge Carbon's global mission and elevate the integrity of the voluntary carbon markets. As we establish our Company's new footprint, we are committed to ensuring the vital benefits of our clean cooking, NbS, and methane avoidance programs are felt first-and-foremost by the rural populations whose livelihoods and ecosystems are most at risk of being upended by climate change."
Mr. Kortenhorst concluded: "Today marks a fresh start for the projects in Bridge Carbon's portfolio. Our projects will not only reduce carbon emissions but also enrich communities a testament to our commitment to integrating carbon reduction with profound social impact. We look forward to meaningfully transforming the lives of individuals and families in some of the world's most vulnerable regions."
Headquartered in London, Bridge Carbon employs approximately 180 professionals across offices in countries including Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, Bangladesh, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Mozambique, Malawi, and Zambia.
About Bridge Carbon
Bridge Carbon is a London-based carbon project developer empowering the most vulnerable communities to address climate change and drive sustainable development. Core to Bridge Carbon's mission is its commitment to building a world-class carbon finance organization that defines the standards for quality, integrity, and transparency across the voluntary carbon markets. Learn more at https://bridgecarbon.com/.
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Contacts:
Amanda Shpiner/Mark Semer
Gasthalter Co.
(212) 257-4170
bridgecarbon@gasthalter.com
