Broker Marsh Offers Insurance to Target Fake Carbon Credits

Insurance broker Marsh will start offering contracts to protect companies against fraud in the market for carbon credits, after the instruments became the subject of recurring allegations of greenwashing.

The insurance contracts will allow companies in the US, Europe and the UK to gain financial protection in the event that credits purchased in order to offset their carbon footprint prove worthless, the broker, which is a unit of New York-based Marsh & Mclennan Cos., said on Monday.

Carbon credits are supposed to represent 1 metric ton of emissions that have been avoided, reduced or removed from the atmosphere, which ...