Carbon Markets Infrastructure (CMI) Working Group

Paving the Way for a More Safe, Efficient, and Interoperable Carbon Market Infrastructure

Climate Market Club

Background

Building robust and interoperable carbon market infrastructure is essential for ensuring integrity and scalability. At COP28, the World Bank released an engagement roadmap outlining how to rebuild trust and transparency in carbon markets and strengthen the systems that underpin high-integrity market participation.

A central element of this effort is harmonizing and standardizing core functions across the carbon market ecosystem. This includes developing minimum service standards, common frameworks, and clear governance across key entities—such as principles-setters, independent standards, registries, validation and verification bodies, and rating agencies—to support consistency and credibility in the market.

The Carbon Market Infrastructure Working Group (CMI WG), convened by the World Bank as a follow-up to the Engagement Roadmap for Carbon Markets, brings together registries, standards bodies, exchanges, regulators, and service providers to jointly develop practical guidance and actionable recommendations that advance the integrity, transparency, and scalability of carbon market infrastructure worldwide.

The CMI Working Group has produced a suite of technical outputs to guide market actors, policymakers, and infrastructure providers. All publications are available on the World Bank Open Knowledge Repository.

Flagship Report

A Roadmap for Safe, Efficient, and Interoperable Carbon Markets Infrastructure World Bank; Carbon Markets Infrastructure Working Group, 2024

This foundational report sets out the CMI Working Group's assessment of the key bottlenecks hindering carbon market infrastructure, alongside a medium- and long-term roadmap of priority areas for action. It draws on extensive consultations with over 45 market actors and provides a comprehensive framework for building infrastructure that is secure, transparent, and fit for global scale.

Access the report →

Executive Summary

Technical Guidance for Safe, Efficient, and Interoperable Carbon Markets Infrastructure – Executive Summary

A concise overview of the CMI Working Group's technical findings and recommendations, designed for senior decision-makers and policymakers seeking a high-level understanding of the group's work and outputs.

Access the Executive Summary →

Technical Guidance Notes

The following five technical guidance notes translate the CMI Working Group's recommendations into actionable tools and frameworks for market practitioners, infrastructure providers, and policymakers:

  1. Ecosystem Governance for Carbon Markets Infrastructure: Assessment and Recommendations

This guidance note assesses the current governance landscape across the carbon market infrastructure ecosystem, identifies gaps and fragmentation risks, and provides recommendations for establishing clear roles, responsibilities, and accountability frameworks among market actors — from standard-setters and registries to trading platforms and verification bodies.

Access Technical Guidance Note on Ecosystem Governance →

  1. Transaction Integrity for Carbon Markets Infrastructure: Tools and Recommendations

This guidance note addresses the risks that can undermine the integrity of carbon market transactions — including fraud, double counting, and money laundering — and presents practical tools and recommendations to strengthen transaction security, auditability, and accountability across the full credit lifecycle.

Access Technical Guidance Note on Transaction Integrity→

  1. Information Security for Carbon Markets Infrastructure: Tools and Recommendations

Drawing on best practices from financial markets and information security frameworks, this guidance note outlines the key risks to data security within carbon market systems and provides minimum standards and actionable recommendations to help market infrastructure providers safeguard sensitive information and maintain system resilience.

Access Technical Guidance Note on Information Security→

  1. Enhancing Data and Systems Interoperability for Carbon Markets: Current Landscape and Strategic Recommendations

This guidance note maps the current state of data systems across voluntary and compliance carbon markets, identifies the barriers to seamless data exchange, and sets out strategic recommendations for achieving interoperability between registries, trading platforms, and national accounting systems — enabling a market that is locally grounded but globally connected.

Access Technical Guidance Note on Interoperability→

  1. Standardizing Digital MRV in Carbon Markets: System Evaluation Criteria and Hotspots Assessment

Digital Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) technologies hold significant potential to reduce the cost, time, and complexity of carbon credit generation and verification. This guidance note presents evaluation criteria for digital MRV systems, identifies priority sectors and use cases where digitalization can deliver the greatest gains, and provides a hotspots assessment to guide investment and adoption decisions.

Access Technical Guidance Note on Digital MRV→

Resources

The CMI Working Group brings together more than 45 institutions representing the full spectrum of the carbon market ecosystem, including registries, standards bodies, exchanges, platforms, financial institutions, and regulators. This multistakeholder composition ensures that guidance developed by the group reflects real-world operational experience and the diverse needs of market participants across both developed and emerging economies.

Current member organizations include:

  • Air Carbon Exchange
  • B3 – Brazilian Stock Exchange
  • Climate Action Data Trust (CAD Trust)
  • Climate Market Strategy & Infrastructure Group (CMSI)
  • CME Group
  • Ecoregistry
  • Global Carbon Council (GCC)
  • Global Carbon Market Utility (GCMU)
  • Gold Standard
  • Indian Energy Exchange (IEX)
  • Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM)
  • Intercontinental Exchange (ICE)
  • International Standards Organization (ISO)
  • International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA)
  • Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE)
  • Nasdaq
  • Philip Lee LLP
  • Puro Earth
  • S&P Global
  • Sylvera
  • US Treasury
  • Verra
  • World Bank
  • Xpansiv
  • Observer: International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) Secretariat