Bloomberg L.P. has acquired carbon analytics and data company Viridios AI from its parent Viridios Group. The strategic transaction will allow the U.S. financial data and media company to considerably expand its carbon market and analytics offering to clients.
Commenting on the deal Viridios Group CEO Eddie Listorti said: “This agreement with Bloomberg is the culmination of five years of innovative data science, research and analysis by the team at Viridios AI and I would like to acknowledge everyone in the team who has worked to build such a unique and powerful carbon market dataset.”
The move follows a challenging 2024 for the voluntary carbon markets which saw trading volumes and prices drop after media scrutiny erroded demand. But the end of the year saw a crucial step forward with a UN-led global market under Article 6 agreed upon at COP29, creating conditions for potential growth.
All existing carbon credit project data, pricing and valuations that Viridios AI has been developing will be transferred to Bloomberg and several team members will also be joining the U.S. company, including CEO Bertrand Le Nezet.
“The transaction with Bloomberg allows us to achieve one of our objectives – seeing what we’ve built in every CFO’s office. With this carbon pricing is going to become mainstream and that is so important, because it’s a way for companies to stress test their current business models. If you factor carbon externalities into your business model, then you have something that will stay relevant in the future. Increasingly, the CFO’s of the world need to not just do the traditional accounting, but take into consideration greenhouse gas accounting,” Le Nezet shared with Carbon Herald.
He also points out the advantages of having carbon pricing data available through the Bloomberg Terminal to clients like banks and asset managers who already have established trading desks or are considering setting up a dedicated carbon desk at some point in the future.
On behalf of Bloomberg, Emilie Gallagher, Global Head of Commodities, FX and Macro Product said: “We welcome the voluntary carbon credit data, analytics and expertise that Viridios has transferred to Bloomberg, and we look forward to the valuable ways our new colleagues will contribute to Bloomberg’s expansion of offerings in the carbon markets space. Our goal is to maintain innovation and provide our customers with the quality data and insights they need to navigate these rapidly evolving markets.”
The transaction, which took several months to finalize, now enables Viridios Group to focus its technology strategy on creating digital climate solutions through Pangolin Associates. This includes tools for measuring greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions tailored for corporate clients.
