← All work

Carbon markets · Paris · 2021 to 2023

Carbon Karma: an investor narrative built on a regulatory mechanism.

SECTOR

Carbon markets

STAGE

Pre-seed, founded

MARKET

EU

ROLE

Co-founder

PERIOD

2021 to 2023

ClimateFintech

The situation

A consumer climate product, launched into a category under attack.

I co-founded Carbon Karma in Paris as a French SAS, capitalised at 10,100 euros, with one co-founder. The product was access: buying European Union Allowances from the EU emissions trading system on behalf of individuals, and retiring them.

The market we were entering was under sustained public attack. Through 2020 and 2021 the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, Bloomberg and the Guardian all ran investigations into voluntary carbon offsets, tree planting and cookstove schemes.

This page covers the narrative work, which is the part that transfers. It is the same argument the Investor Narrative offer produces.

01 · What this engagement produced

6 of 34 outputs

Research

Competition

Segment, position and price

Message

Launch and enable

Measure and maintain

Solid is what the narrative work produced. Dashed is what a two-person pre-seed company never reached.

02 · The decision

Which market we asked to be judged against.

A consumer climate product can be filed in three places, and each one carries a different level of trust with it. The choice was not a wording choice. It decided which press cycle we inherited.

Struck

Another voluntary offsets seller

Instantly understood, and buying into a category the press was dismantling that year.

Struck

A pure investment product

Appeals to one buyer, loses the person who came to act on climate.

Chosen

Access to the compliance market

Retiring an allowance stops a tonne rather than claiming to reduce one.

Prevention over cure was the whole argument. Every number and every buyer type in the deck was chosen to hold that line.

03 · The numbers

The numbers the argument stood on.

230bn

Euro value of the EU ETS, per year

11,000

Companies covered by the system

3%

Management fee on the club's average capital

Market figures come from the deck's own cited sources at the time. They are 2021 numbers and are not restated as current.

04 · What I built

5 workstreams

Five workstreams behind the deck.

01The category argumentAgainst voluntary offsets, not inside them.

03 Segment, position & price

  • Positioned on stopping emissions rather than offsetting them, using the compliance market instead of the voluntary one
  • The press coverage of tree planting and cookstove schemes used as the reason the category was open
  • Existing solutions plotted as low impact and indirect against high impact and direct
02The market, sizedWhat the argument was standing on.

01 Research

  • World emissions against what the compliance markets actually cover, drawn to scale
  • EU ETS and the Chinese national system at two billion tonnes each, California at 340 million, voluntary markets at 100 million
  • Voluntary offsets priced at 10 to 30 dollars against ours at 75 to 80, with the quality gap as the reason
03Why nowRegulation and press, both dated.

01 Research

  • The EU tightening supply on a published schedule, with a rule change dated in the deck
  • The bearish case written next to the bullish one rather than left out
  • The market's inaccessibility to individuals stated as the opening, since that was the product
04Two buyers, two motivationsThe offsetter and the investor.

03 Segment, position & price

  • The offsetter: wants real climate action, distrusts voluntary offsets, reads the same investigations we did
  • The investor: wants exposure to an allowance that had been one of the better performing commodities, motivated by returns and ESG
  • Common traits written across both, so one product could hold two reasons to buy
05The pitch deckThe argument in the order it survives questions.

03 Segment, position & price

  • Problem, the failing alternative, the mechanism, the market, the two buyers, the vehicle and the roadmap
  • The Buyers Club structure explained plainly: the company holds allowances in its EU registry account, members keep control and can sell at market
  • Phase one sells offsets to build a name and a user base; phase two becomes the platform

05 · The judgment call

Refusing the category that would have been easier to sell.

Selling tree-planting offsets would have been quicker. The mechanism is familiar, the imagery sells itself, and nobody has to be taught what a carbon credit is before they can buy one.

We took the harder frame because the easy one was being taken apart in public while we were writing the deck. Choosing the compliance market meant teaching the mechanism first, which cost us speed and bought us an argument that survived the press cycle.

06 · What this proves

Category, market, buyers, and having been the founder.

I choose the comparison.

Against the failing category, not inside it.

I size the market honestly.

What the markets cover, next to what they do not.

I write for more than one buyer.

Two motivations, one product, no contradiction.

I have been the founder.

My own company, my own capital, my own wind-down.

Scope

My own company, co-founded in Paris and wound down in 2023, when the registry account was closed. Figures are from the 2021 investor deck and its cited sources.