Platts to launch Australian Safeguard Mechanism Credits price assessment

Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights, will launch an Australian Safeguard Mechanism Credit assessment, effective May 5, 2025.

This follows a proposal published March 24 in a subscriber note available here(opens in a new tab)

SMCs are tradable emissions reduction credits that are generated when a Safeguard facility reduces emissions beyond its baseline. A safeguard facility is mandated by the Australian government to mitigate emissions either via introducing operational changes or by purchasing SMCs or Australia Carbon Credit Units.

Safeguard facilities that earn SMCs can trade them by selling them to other facilities or surrendering them to stay within their baseline. SMCs aren't offsets -- they allow facilities with lower emissions reduction costs to sell their SMCs to facilities with higher reduction costs.

An SMC represents 1 mtCO2e emissions below a facility's baseline.

The assessment will reflect SMCs in the spot market, following issuances from Australia's Clean Energy Regulator, providing more transparency to market participants.

The specifications of the new price assessment are as follows:

• Volume: 5,000-100,000 mtCO2e
• Currency: Australian dollars
• Unit of Measurement: A$/mtCO2e
• Delivery: Spot market
• Frequency: Daily
• Timestamp: 1630 Melbourne/Sydney/Canberra time
• Platts Publishing Calendar: APAC Carbon Calendar

A monthly average will also be published for the assessment.

The assessments will be published in Carbon Market Daily under the following symbols:

Please send any comments, feedback and questions to platts_carbon@spglobal.com and pricegroup@spglobal.com

For written comments, please provide a clear indication if comments are not intended for publication by Platts for public viewing.

Platts will consider all comments received and will make comments not marked as confidential available upon request.