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Ahead of Carbon Unbound East Coast, we spoke with Ludovic Chatoux, Co-Founder & CEO of Rainbow, about the trust gap in voluntary carbon markets, the infrastructure needed for institutional adoption, and why registries remain central to the market’s future.
Fragmented Market Structure
What's the biggest structural weakness in today's carbon market infrastructure?
Complexity. There are hundreds of intermediaries, legacy systems, and archaic processes. Buyers can't keep up with what the projects are, what the rules are, or who's responsible for what. We need clarity in order to build trust.
The Trust Gap
Why does trust remain such a challenge in voluntary carbon markets?
High-profile scandals have created a systemic mistrust in the system. Even companies eager to support climate action hesitate to buy credits, or talk about ones they've already bought, because of public perception. They’re afraid that genuine attempts to do good could do damage to their reputation.
Building on Old Systems
Where can new infrastructure add value without disrupting existing systems?
Pieces of traditional financial markets are finding a natural place in the carbon market. Insurance, credit ratings, and data standardisation (like CDOP) can slot in around existing registries and frameworks without replacing them. Integrity bodies like ICVCM or regulatory mechanisms like CRCF set the quality floor, so new financial infrastructure builds on top rather than competing with it. The result is a market that starts to look more like other asset classes: credits that can be priced, insured, and compared at scale.
Reaching Professional Standards
What's missing for carbon markets to reach institutional-grade credibility?
Three things:
- Standardised measurement and verification protocols, so buyers can get the confidence that different projects and tonnes are assessed and issued on a comparable, rigorous basis
- Regulatory clarity, because until the market understands what policy-driven demand will actually look like, it's hard to price long-term risk
- Insurance: the mechanisms exist but adoption is still too narrow.
The appetite is there, our infrastructure just doesn’t yet meet the bar institutions require. Get these right, and the capital follows.
Keeping the Registries
Are we ready to move beyond registry-led systems?
Not yet, and honestly, I'm not sure we should want to. Registries need to play a central role in institutional markets. The regulatory frameworks being built right now, like CRCF, are designed around them, not to replace them. Compliance schemes endorse existing registries, not bypass them. That's a good thing.
Registries provide rigour the market needs. They translate quality criteria into practice on the ground and give buyers the traceability and auditability that institutional participation requires. Moving beyond them means rebuilding all of that from scratch. The more likely and efficient path sees registries evolving to become the operational backbone, helping to meet the bar that regulated markets set.
Why This Event Matters
Why is Carbon Unbound East Coast an important stage for you right now?
Carbon Unbound is one of the best events in the space. Great speakers, the right people in the room, and genuinely well run. For us it's become something of a recurring checkpoint. Each edition is a good opportunity to step back, see how the market has evolved, evaluate how our own trajectory has shifted, and use that perspective to plan what comes next. You also get those conversations with peers building the market from different angles, which gives you a real sense of where things stand that you don't always get when you're heads down executing.
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