Johannesburg is preparing to host the inaugural Carbon Markets Africa Summit from 21 to 23 October, a gathering that is expected to bring together the continent’s entire carbon markets value chain. Developers, regulators, institutional investors, global organizations and policymakers will convene to take stock of Africa’s readiness to build robust, transparent carbon markets. In the run-up to the event, organizers have confirmed TASC, the pioneering carbon finance and project development company, as the summit’s diamond sponsor.
The timing of the announcement comes at a moment when several African countries are moving decisively to establish rules of the game under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. Kenya has gazette national regulations to govern carbon markets, Ghana has already authorized its first international transfers, Rwanda has put in place a national carbon registry, and South Africa has passed its first climate change law while publishing draft guidance on carbon trade. These measures are building the scaffolding for an African carbon market system that has integrity at its core and the potential to unlock long-term climate finance flows.
For TASC, the partnership with the summit is a way of underscoring its ambition to scale projects that deliver measurable environmental and social benefits. The company is perhaps best known for its clean cooking programme in South Africa, where it has distributed more than 950,000 fuel-efficient cookstoves to households across the country. This achievement was supported by an innovative pre-financing facility from Standard Bank that allowed TASC to repay early-stage capital and accelerate the expansion of the programme. In 2023, the initiative earned the Environmental Finance Voluntary Carbon Market Award, a recognition that signalled international confidence in its design and execution.
While clean cooking has been a flagship, TASC has also broken new ground with its GRASS project, Grassland Restoration and Stewardship in South Africa. Registered as the world’s first project under Verra’s VM0042 methodology, GRASS focuses on restoring degraded rangelands, improving soil health, boosting water retention and biodiversity, and strengthening resilience for communities living on the frontline of climate change. The project is designed to operate at scale across hundreds of thousands of hectares, with robust monitoring and verification systems to ensure the credibility of every tonne of carbon sequestered.
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Shelley Estcourt, TASC’s Africa chief executive, insists that integrity and scale must go hand in hand. She describes the company’s philosophy as one that is “rooted in rigorous carbon science, but always anchored in community needs.” For her, the summit provides an important space where buyers and developers can meet face-to-face, ask the hard questions and build trust in what has become a crowded and sometimes contested marketplace.
The debate around integrity in the voluntary carbon market is far from settled. Clean cooking credits, in particular, have faced scrutiny for potential over-crediting. New rules from standard-setting bodies, including the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market, now impose stricter methodologies and monitoring to ensure that emission reductions claimed are genuinely delivered. For developers like TASC, this presents both a challenge and an opportunity. The bar has been raised, but those with strong data, transparent financing structures and demonstrable community benefits are best positioned to thrive in the next chapter of carbon trading.
The Carbon Markets Africa Summit, hosted by VUKA Group with the United Nations Development Programme as official partner, is expected to set the tone for this next chapter. It is designed not only as a forum for high-level dialogue but also as a marketplace where projects, buyers and regulators can accelerate readiness for Article 6 implementation. For TASC, being at the centre of these discussions is a chance to showcase how African-led innovation, coupled with international standards, can deliver carbon projects that truly shift the dial on both emissions and livelihoods.
As October approaches, the spotlight will fall on Johannesburg. What emerges from the summit may well shape the trajectory of African carbon markets for years to come: whether the continent can harness climate finance to drive resilient development, and whether companies like TASC can prove that carbon projects at scale can also be projects of integrity.
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