Wealth and asset management corporation Northern Trust has signed a service agreement with Ecosystem Certification Organization (ECO) to provide lifecycle management for digital carbon credits certified under ECO’s Natural Forest Standard (NFS).
With this move, ECO will outsource the recordation and settlement services for NFS projects to Northern Trust, drawing a clearer separation between governance and registry operations.
As Jonathan Bowie, Director at ECO, explained, this agreement will enable ECO “to focus further attention on its core business offering of supporting operational activities in relation to the administration of the main functions of the Standard.”
The NFS helps natural forestry projects active on the voluntary carbon market by providing a crediting mechanism for the carbon, environmental, and socio-economic improvements introduced through activities that prevent deforestation and forest degradation.
This standard is administered and governed by ECO, which provides support to project developers using the NFS methodology.
As part of its support role, ECO engages with NFS projects from the initial implementation to credit issuance, ensuring that the methodology and governance process are credible and transparent.
Under the new service agreement, Northern Trust will now take on the task of providing recordation and settlement services for the digital carbon credit units issued under the NFS.
This new role will also include following instructions from each NFS project developer to transfer and settle digital carbon credit transactions while also providing designated custodial services.
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Northern Trust will leverage The Northern Trust Carbon Ecosystem™, a completely digital platform for end-to-end lifecycle management of digital voluntary carbon credits, offered through The Northern Trust Company in Chicago.
Commenting on this announcement, Justin Chapman, Group Head of Strategic Partnerships, Digital Assets and Financial Markets, at Northern Trust, stated, “We are pleased to provide recordation services to ECO. Working with standards bodies who are looking to separate responsibilities supports further maturity of the voluntary carbon market.”
