“Over the years we’ve invested significantly in our field data team - focusing on producing trusted ratings. While this ensures the accuracy of our Ratings, it doesn’t allow the scale across the thousands of projects that buyers are considering.”
For more information on carbon credit procurement trends, read our "Key Takeaways for 2025" article. We share five, data-backed tips to improve your procurement strategy.
One more thing: Connect to Supply customers also get access to the rest of Sylvera's tools. That means you can easily see project ratings and evaluate an individual project's strengths, procure quality carbon credits, and even monitor project activity (particularly if you’ve invested at the pre-issuance stage.)
Book a free demo of Sylvera to see our platform's procurement and reporting features in action.
One of the world's leading financial institutions’ carbon trading desk operates at the intersection of climate policy and market opportunity.
The team faces a complex challenge with CORSIA: building trading positions in a compliance market that isn’t yet fully operational — while convincing internal risk teams that these positions are sound.
By partnering with Sylvera, this multinational investment bank gained access to comprehensive Market Intelligence, expert policy analysis, and scenario modeling capabilities that has transformed how they justify carbon trading positions internally and identify opportunities externally.
The result? A defensible, data-driven approach to navigating one of the most complex compliance markets.
The Challenge
Taking positions in a complex and unclear market
The company’s trading desk plays a critical role in the CORSIA market as both matchmaker and market trader.
On one side, they connect airlines facing compliance obligations with project developers who can supply eligible carbon credits. On the other, they take strategic positions to capitalize on market inefficiencies and supply constraints.
But, quite unlike trading physical commodities or even established carbon markets, CORSIA presents unique complexities.
Unpredictable supply meets uncertain demand
For credits to be CORSIA-eligible, they must navigate a complex approval process, that includes Letter of Approval (LoA) from host governments, and Corresponding Adjustments (CAs). The pipeline is therefore highly uncertain.
"We're trying to operate in a market that isn't quite there yet. Buyers are waiting for clear supply signals, while we're trying to show airlines their liability is real and they need to act. It's very difficult when the market infrastructure is still developing."
The demand side is equally opaque. Key aviation markets have not yet clarified whether they will mandate CORSIA participation - yet these regions represent significant potential demand. Without knowing which airlines will face compliance obligations, market projections vary widely.
The internal risk management hurdle
The company’s risk team needed to understand and approve trading positions, but CORSIA defied easy explanation.
It’s a unique and challenging market for investors. For example, cookstove credits - a project category with clear, early eligibility signals in the CORSIA market - are priced on today's market at around $5. A trader could, for example, claim that in two years they'll be worth $25. Taking this position would require clear, defensible evidence for approval of the risk team.
"Taking a position on a market such as CORSIA is hard to explain and prove out. Valuing it is very difficult. We have to show why we’re valuing credits at this future price when they're trading at a fraction of that today.”
Without robust, third-party intelligence to support their thesis, the traders faced challenges in deploying capital at the scale required to capture the CORSIA opportunity. The team needed stronger defensibility.
The limits of existing market intelligence
Most market forecasts offer a single point estimate of future prices. But these tend to obscure the complexity underneath. The team needed to model scenarios, understand policy pathways, and stress-test assumptions.
To succeed in CORSIA, they needed a clear line of sight into critical domains: host government readiness, project eligibility, methodology approvals, and airline participation. They needed a partner who could operate at the intersection of deep policy expertise and sophisticated market modeling.
Why Sylvera
Strategic intelligence, all in one place
The multinational investment bank partnered with Sylvera to gain comprehensive intelligence across the CORSIA market - from project-level eligibility to demand-side scenario analysis.
Rather than relying on fragmented information, the team now had access to a comprehensive, defensible intelligence platform.
Real-time supply-side project data
Sylvera provided the team with a continuously updated database of projects tagged with CORSIA eligibility status - covering everything from phase eligibility to LoA status to methodology approvals.
On the supply side, that’s a database of over 20,000 projects, each tagged with CORSIA eligibility and LoA status, in real-time. So they can immediately filter the universe and see what's in the pipeline, and how credits compare.
Beyond project-level data, Sylvera’s readiness framework assesses host countries' ability to issue LoAs and CAs, scoring countries based on progress across domestic registries, approval processes, and institutional capacity. This helps quantify risk across different regions.
Policy expertise
Another valuable element was access to deep policy expertise - Sylvera’s industry-leading policy team includes a member of the CORSIA TAB (Technical Advisory Body), that approves methodologies.
"Sylvera’s expertise is crucial for understanding the nuts and bolts of the CORSIA approval process. When methodologies get approved, we need to understand what that means for the market in terms of supply and price trajectories.”
Scenario modeling
Working with Sylvera, the team developed sophisticated scenario analysis to model different demand and supply pathways based on policy decisions.
These scenarios became essential tools for both strategic planning and internal conversations with risk management. The team could now present not just a position, but a well-reasoned framework for understanding how that position would perform under different regulatory outcomes.
The Results
1. Internal defensibility and risk approval
Using Sylvera's Market Intelligence and policy expertise, the trading team could provide robust, third-party-backed rationale for their positions.
"Market Intelligence, combined with the insights from Sylvera’s policy team, provides the informed view we need to satisfy the risk team. That defensibility enables us to deploy more money and capitalize on opportunities.”
Rather than relying on intuition or fragmented market reports, the team could present comprehensive analysis covering supply readiness, demand scenarios, policy pathways, and worst-case protection.
2. Strategic advantage through scenario planning
The scenario modeling capabilities gave a strategic edge in identifying market opportunities others weren't seeing. By understanding the interplay between policy decisions, supply constraints, and demand dynamics, they could take informed positions ahead of market consensus.
"We're trying to spot where the market might be short and prices might go up. The scenario analysis helps us understand those dynamics before they become obvious to everyone else.”
3. Confident capital deployment in an emerging market
Most importantly, the team moved from analysis to action. They are now investing into the CORSIA market - with the inherent amount of risk this market holds - backed by the intelligence that gives them the confidence to do so.
4. Comprehensive market visibility
Beyond specific trading positions, Sylvera's platform has proven a comprehensive intelligence hub - tracking everything from project retirements to buyer activity to methodology approvals.
"We use the Sylvera platform to keep a keen eye on the carbon market across different dimensions. It's not just about one data point - it's about having complete visibility into the market ecosystem, in one place."
