American Carbon Registry Recognized in Environmental Finance Surveys

ARLINGTON, VA, February 9, 2011 – Today American Carbon Registry (ACR), a nonprofit enterprise of Winrock International, was announced as runner-up “Best Registry Provider” in the Environmental Finance 2010 Voluntary Carbon Market Survey. Survey results were based on write-in votes from over 500 global carbon market participants who were asked to base nominations on efficiency and speed of transactions, reliability, innovation, quality of service provided and influence on the market.

“Last year was a tough one in the voluntary carbon markets, in common with wider environmental trading,” said Mark Nicholls, editor of Environmental Finance. “But winners in our survey report a pick-up in interest and activity, as the economic clouds begin to lift and as North American participants ready themselves for a carbon market in California.”

Environmental Finance defines voluntary carbon as “carbon credits bought or sold to help organizations or individuals offset carbon emissions where they are not required by regulation to do so.” This may be to meet voluntary emissions reduction targets or to prepare for future compliance markets.

“As the first voluntary carbon registry in the U.S., ACR has a 15-year history of working with carbon market pioneers,” says Mary Grady, director of business development for ACR. “The ACR team is honored to be recognized for a continued focus on environmental integrity, innovation and quality of service.”   

This latest ACR recognition is on the heels of December 2010 award of runner-up “Best U.S. pre-compliance exchange” in Environmental Finance and Carbon Finance Global Environmental Market Survey in the North America Mandatory / Pre-Compliance Carbon Markets category. The survey – the most closely watched poll of sentiment across carbon, renewable energy, weather risk and U.S. emissions markets – reveals those firms that their clients, peers and competitors have judged to have provided the best service over the previous twelve months.

“The winners of this year’s survey are those that have stayed the course through the tough times,” said Mark Nicholls, editor of Environmental Finance.  “Time and again, survey respondents voted for those firms with a long heritage in what are still youthful markets, and rewarded commitment to helping their clients navigate often complex and fast-moving regulatory environments.”

While ACR is not an exchange, the December survey votes for ACR reflect the dearth of exchange options for the North America pre-compliance market, where registries have played a more prominent role to date. ACR is proud of the award as market recognition of the precompliance quality of ACR-registered offsets.

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About the American Carbon Registry 

The nonprofit American Carbon Registry (ACR), an enterprise of Winrock International, is a

leading carbon offset program recognized for its strong standards for environmental integrity.  Founded in 1996 as the GHG Registry by Environmental Resources Trust, ACR has 15 years of experience in the development of rigorous, science-based carbon offset standards and methodologies as well as in carbon offset issuance, serialization and transparent online transaction and retirement reporting. As the first private voluntary GHG registry in the world, ACR has set the bar in the global voluntary carbon market for offset quality and operational transparency. www.americancarbonregistry.org