Gordon Bennett, the U.K.-based managing director of utility markets at the Intercontinental Exchange, recently sat down with John Lothian to talk about ESG initiatives, including pricing the cost of carbon and “carbonomics,” the science of identifying specific opportunities to reduce or eliminate greenhouse gas.
Bennett was part of an in-person panel discussion on the topic, “Exchanges and the Roll Out of New Sustainability Products,” at FIA’s IDX 2021 on September 28. “It was great to be back on a (live) panel,” he noted. “It gives you a semblance of normalcy.”
Much of the discussion at IDX was on the subject of future products, but ICE already has a lot of products, Bennet noted. Its product line expanded about 10 years ago when it bought the Climate Exchange in 2010.
Cap-and-trade has been shown to work in the EU and especially in the U.K. as it transitions away from coal as an energy source, he said.
There will be new ESG products, for sure, he added. “But we’d also like to see more cap-and trade programs implemented by governments around the world.”
The transition to cleaner energy is going to be complex, Bennett said, and increased volatility is to be expected. “That’s why we need exchanges,“ he said – to hedge that volatility.
