Carbon Finance, a key component for advancing climate action

New tradable assets and low-carbon project development

We are enthusiastic to see the great traction for carbon finance, and how it could be successfully integrated into a business model to help sustaining activities. We have seen in 2020 some projects being able to leverage carbon revenue to make up for 50% of their budget lost due to the COVID19 crisis.

The world needs to accelerate and reach the last mile population with low-carbon solutions to build climate-resilient communities. Hence, we also see how community-based projects could benefit from new tradable assets such as iRECs. New low-carbon project development can also be supported end-to-end by Nexus with the support of partnerships with development agencies and multinational corporations.

Because on the other end of the spectrum, Nexus’s demand for carbon-offsets is growing. Governments are pledging for concrete actions to be taken. More and more corporates engage in Net-zero strategies with carbon-neutral goals to achieve by 2030. The upcoming COP26 should actually see the consolidation of all commitments and lay out the implementation plan.

Nexus: What are you most excited about Carbon Finance?
Justin: Recently, we’ve been seeing a level of attention on the carbon market like never before. In addition to the increased demand for climate action, we’re seeing a new open-mindedness to how to drive sustainable development. This attention and flexibility translate to more opportunities for Nexus to finance climate action in areas that wouldn’t have been feasible over the past few years.

N: What do you see as the main challenges and opportunities within the carbon market these days?
J: The biggest opportunity for Nexus right now is the growth of our portfolio. At the moment we’re exploring a number of exciting new activities that Nexus will be supporting financially and through technical services.  We’re actively working to translate the increased global action into real, quantifiable, and inclusive impact to projects on the ground here in Southeast Asia. The challenge with the new growth in the market is the necessary evolution that comes with it. We’re excited to be a part of this wave but we’re conscious that we need to be flexible across all strategies and partnerships in order to make real progress on climate goals

N: How do you see Nexus thriving in this sector? What would be the key success factors for Nexus as a low-carbon project developer?
J: The key to success will be finding the unique models that work best for the next decade of climate action. Priorities are changing from international to local levels and we need to constantly evolve our services and products to match these changes. Our work will focus on both bringing in new partners and growing our services with existing clients to continue to efficiently finance the growth of sustainable development projects on the ground.

N: What would you call for the coming 6 months?
J: In the next six months Nexus will focus on growing our portfolio of projects to meet current and future demand from our clients. Many of these projects can take years to really start making an impact so we have to continue to early-stage support in order to scale impacts in the future.