As carbon markets gain prominence in Brazil and abroad, Anbima (Brazilian Financial and Capital Markets Association) is expanding its work to support the development of this agenda in the country. Its strategy combines two complementary fronts: helping build a sustainable carbon credit market in Brazil and preparing the professionals who will operate in it.

Carbon is moving beyond sustainability teams and onto the risk, pricing and structuring desks of financial institutions. With the creation of the Brazilian Emissions Trading System (SBCE), companies in greenhouse gas-intensive sectors subject to regulation under Law 15,042/2024 will face emissions caps and will periodically need to demonstrate compliance by surrendering emissions allowances or certificates showing reductions in emissions or the removal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

These assets representing emissions, reductions or removals can be traded within the regulated SBCE environment, creating regulated demand for them.

Brazil enters this debate from an unusual position. It is one of the world’s largest potential generators of carbon credits, supported by forestry and conservation projects, but it still lacks enough domestic demand to absorb that supply. At the same time, rules governing how much of this inventory can be exported, how it should be priced and which markets can receive it are being developed simultaneously in Brazil and abroad — a process that will help determine the economic value of the asset before it even exists at scale.

This is where capital markets come in. Turning carbon credits into tradable assets with legal certainty, integrity, registration, traceability, due diligence and liquidity requires infrastructure and expertise already well established in the financial industry.

Anbima has therefore focused its work on two fronts that move in parallel: supporting the sustainable development of Brazil’s carbon credit market while aligning it with international initiatives, and preparing the professionals who will operate in it.

Preparing the financial industry

Anbima and Febraban (Brazilian Federation of Banks) are holding the Carbon Market Journey, a series of online workshops that approaches carbon as a risk factor, a pricing variable and an asset. The program covers market architecture, credit integrity, climate governance, legal structuring in capital markets and the links with agribusiness.

The series is part of the Anbima Sustainability Network, a forum open to professionals from member institutions, specialists and academics. The network is offering 15 workshops across four learning tracks, also covering Brazil’s Sustainable Taxonomy, blended finance and IFRS standards.

The educational effort builds on earlier initiatives. In previous cycles, the association held the Decarbonization Journey for asset managers, which drew around 440 participants, and the Road to COP Journey, organized in partnership with CNseg and Febraban. That initiative brought together more than 1,300 participants and concluded with an in-person event in Belém during COP30.

Work that began before the law

Anbima created its carbon working group in 2021 to discuss and propose guidelines for integrating carbon credits into Brazil’s financial and capital markets. Before developing its positions, the group met with Brazilian project developers and international certification bodies to understand how the assets and the secondary market operate.

From 2022, as legislative efforts to establish a regulated carbon market in Brazil gained momentum, the association submitted technical notes on successive bills, held regular meetings with lawmakers, the Central Bank and the Securities and Exchange Commission of Brazil (CVM), and created a working group within FIN to bring together carbon-market discussions among financial industry participants, including Febraban, ABBC and B3.

The following year, Anbima responded to a consultation by the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) on best practices and jurisdictions’ perspectives on the development of voluntary carbon markets.

One of Anbima’s proposals during the legislative process that led to regulation of the SBCE was incorporated into the final wording of Law 15,042/2024. The law classifies carbon credits and SBCE assets — emissions allowances and reduction or removal certificates — as securities under CVM oversight when traded in financial and capital markets.

This framework provides greater legal certainty and allows the market to rely on existing regulatory infrastructure.

Anbima now holds a full seat on the SBCE’s Permanent Technical Advisory Committee (CTCP), which includes representatives of industry sectors. Its appointment, made through a selection process led by the Ministry of Finance’s Extraordinary Secretariat for the Carbon Market, formalized a role the association had been building over several years.

The supply-demand gap

Around 15 million tonnes of Brazilian carbon credits are retired each year — meaning they are permanently removed from circulation to offset emissions — with a significant share purchased by foreign buyers. Brazilian buyers account for around 3.8 million credits.

Domestic supply is expected to grow to several times that volume, driven by conservation programs led by states including Pará, Acre, Tocantins and Mato Grosso, as well as soil carbon capture and reforestation projects.

The regulated market will not close that gap in the short term. The SBCE is expected to be implemented gradually, with monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) requirements beginning in 2027 and the allocation and trading phase starting in 2030.

“Even with Brazil’s regulated system fully operational, we would not be able to absorb that entire volume of tonnes,” said Maria Belen Losada, coordinator of Anbima’s Carbon Market Working Group. She sees exports as a necessary part of the solution.

Regulation takes shape

Brazil’s Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change opened a public consultation on a draft resolution setting out the conditions, procedures and limits for Brazil’s participation in cooperative approaches involving Internationally Transferred Mitigation Outcomes (ITMOs) under the Paris Agreement.

The proposal calls for a reduction of 100 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent in net emissions through mitigation outcomes between 2031 and 2035. Of that total, up to 50 million tonnes could be authorized for international transfer to help Brazil meet its climate commitments.

The draft also gives a Designated National Authority responsibility for issuing the authorization letters required to transfer those outcomes.

Anbima submitted comments during the consultation. Its proposals include bringing forward the export window, creating a dedicated channel for CORSIA, the international aviation emissions offsetting mechanism, reviewing the auction process, and setting limits calibrated by project type rather than applying a single percentage across all projects.