ICE to Host Carbon Credit Auctions for UpEnergy

Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (NYSE:ICE), a leading global provider of data, technology, and market infrastructure, today announced that it plans to auction carbon credits based on UpEnergy’s Improved Cookstove Programme in Uganda.

UpEnergy is a social impact business that makes clean technologies, from cleaner cooking to safe water, accessible to people and communities in low-income countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Its Cookstove Project in Uganda aims to distribute locally made fuel saving stoves to help reduce emissions, protect local forests and improve the financial wellbeing of those vulnerable to climate risks.

As detailed by UpEnergy, the fuel saving stoves manufactured in Uganda and distributed throughout the project, use an estimated 45% to 55% less charcoal as a result of improved thermal efficiencies and have the power to bring financial benefits to families, including household fuel savings. Access to cleaner cookstoves benefits women and girls in Uganda, who are most often responsible for household cooking, and who disproportionately suffer the most when the process is expensive, time consuming, and can be harmful to health.

The reduction in charcoal use offers larger environmental benefits with, according to UpEnergy, one household cookstove cutting several tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year. Use of the cookstoves can also help ease the burden on local forests by reducing deforestation related to charcoal production.

UpEnergy aims to fund the manufacture and distribution of the cookstoves from the sale of carbon credits issued after verification by Gold Standard as Verified Emission Reductions (VERs), as further detailed on their website. ICE plans to host two auctions for UpEnergy, each auctioning 250,000 credits, with one auction scheduled for the first half of 2023 and one during the second half of the year. Each credit will represent one ton of carbon dioxide emission reduction.

“ICE’s auction service aims to institutionalize the primary market for carbon credits by connecting buyers directly to project developers, reducing friction in the transaction process, and bringing much needed transparency to price discovery,” said Gordon Bennett, Managing Director of Utility Markets at ICE. “Environmental markets enable companies to efficiently allocate capital to the decarbonization of energy consumption and the growth of carbon sinks. Buying and retiring carbon credits allows companies to invest in carbon credit projects, whilst recognizing the cost of pollution and therefore incentivizing them to seek lower cost abatement opportunities.”