In December 2012, Paul Mark Green set up a company that claimed to provide an exit strategy for people conned into buying carbon credits as investments. For a fee, of course.
Green’s company was called Carbon Neutral Trading Exchange. In September 2013, he changed the company’s name to Carbon Neutral Offsets Limited.
On its website, the company confidently announced that its staff were, “The Exit Stratergy [sic] Experts”. Happily, someone picked up the spelling mistake before the banners for a mid-2013 “road show” were produced:
This morning I received a message from one of Carbon Neutral Offsets’ unhappy customers:
The company was based in Wessex house, Eastleigh but moved to 16 Station Hill, Eastleigh. However, they have now disappeared and no longer occupy that office. The web site has also been shut down along with email and telephones. He has taken client fees for selling carbon credits and disappeared.
There are similar complaints about Carbon Neutral Offsets and Paul Mark Green here. The company is still registered at Companies House, but the website has gone.
Paul Mark Green is a director of another company, called The Environmental Firm Limited.
Green’s CV includes a spell working with Enviro Associates, selling carbon credits as investments. (His profile on LinkedIn has gone, but here’s an archived copy.) When I interviewed Green in April 2013, I asked him about this. Here’s how he replied:
Regarding my time at Enviro this company is the reason I set up my company and decided to set a goal to aid clients in exiting the market. I was constantly being asked about exit strategies from clients and was advised to tell clients that a platform would be available sometime in the future, I also forwarded questions to CNI [Carbon Neutral Investments] as had concerns with the industry and could not understand why people could not exit the market but none of the responses I received seemed acceptable.
In the interview, he also explained how his company was supposed to work:
[P]rices for credits is low but many credits even now are bought for pence and sold for pounds and this is the main flaw in the market but we aim to make the client a return and if a company is not prepared to pay the price quoted we will negotiate this with the client and company.
Green’s grammatical incompetence seems to be contagious. The company’s website included a list of “Testimonials” from companies that are supposed to have bought carbon credits from Carbon Neutral Offsets.
A company called BTC wrote:
“The total overall price to become carbon neutral was a lot less than we anticipated and we was suprised at the overall savings we achieved from carbon reduction.”
And another company, this one called Fox metals, wrote:
“We was very pleased with the overall costing and look forward to working with trade exchange in years to come.
After I interviewed Green, he sent me an email that included this gem:
It good to be sceptical as it keeps companies on their toes but you cant tarnish everyone with the same brush as it was not the scammers who initial created the market, they have just taken advantage of its complexities.
Proof is in the pudding when it comes to any business and no doubt you will be keeping a watchable eye on our activity and over time I hope you will be less of a sceptic and realise we can look to give investors in the market some hope.
REDD-Monitor’s advice for Carbon Neutral Offset’s clients is to contact Action Fraud:
Every industry expert agrees: there is no secondary market for carbon credits of the type that were sold as investments. Companies wishing to offset can buy credits much more cheaply and conveniently than those held by private investors. If you still think a company is going to be able to sell your credits for you (in return for a fee or something else) then you need your head examining.
This includes companies that are apparently engaged in “carbon consultancy”. Genuine companies offering this kind of service would NOT source credits for offsetting purposes from private investors.