MED Investment Operations – Part 3: MidiaGeo and InBECAS, the Brazilian Connection

A few weeks ago, REDD-Monitor received an email offering 345 million carbon credits for sale. A company based in Malta called MED Investment Operations is offering carbon credits from a REDD project in Brazil and them for sale at US$6.80 each. This post, the third in a series of posts about this incredible offer, looks at the company supposedly running the REDD project: MidiaGeo.

The previous posts in this series are available here:

• 26 July 2016: MED Investment Operations – Part 1: Anyone want to buy 345 million REDD carbon credits? Only US$6.80 each
• 3 August 2016: MED Investment Operations – Part 2: “This model is recognized by international institutions such as Standard Conversion environmental assets of Forests in Transaction instruments”

MED Investment Operations is offering 345 million carbon credits for sale for a total of US$2.3 billion. The carbon credits are all from one project: D’Cerrado A’Amazonia REDD Brazil. The project supposedly covers an area of 545,430 hectares in the state of Mato Grosso. The project developer is a company called the MidiaGeo Group.

Despite the fact that this is a large REDD project, generating a large number of carbon credits, the project has received no media coverage in Brazil, or anywhere else.

MidiaGeo’s website is currently down, but an archived version is available here.

MidiaGeo’s website is sketchy on how it proposes to achieve reduced deforestation and degradation over this vast area of land, instead focussing on the benefits of the project. Such as this:

A significant evolution of the economic reality of the group of project participants that with the mechanism will get an increase in income, resulting in generation of jobs and opportunities for the whole region and the vicinity, thus changing the landscape of families.

Whatever that means.

The REDD credits were verified and certified by a company called InBECAS, the Brazilian Institute of carbon stocks and sustainable actions.

Midiageo’s website was registered in May 2009 by Anderson Oliveira Alexandre. Alexandre also registered the InBECAS website.

Both websites feature the following notice:

MidiaGeo and InBECAS, it seems, don’t want just anyone to sell their carbon credits.

Anderson Oliveira Alexandre’s email address (anderson@midiageo.com.br) is given on the contact page of MidiaGEO’s website. According to his LinkedIn page, Alexandre is Executive Director of InBECAS:

In 2011, MidiaGeo had a stall at an event in Mato Grosso, and posted lots of photographs on its Facebook page (unfortunately, MidiaGeo gives no further details about what the event actually was). Here’s a sample:

It all looks like great fun. But since then, MidiaGEO seems to have gone publicity shy. No other events are posted on the Facebook page. The company’s website provides no photographs of any events, or any photographs of the D’Cerrado A’Amazonia REDD Brazil project. I haven’t even been able to find a map of the REDD project area.

When I asked about which registry the carbon credits were on, I received the following reply from Daniel Azzopardi, CEO of MED Investment Operations:

It was developed between local governments of Brazil SISA – Integrated Environmental Sustainability by InBECAS platform – Brazilian Institute of Carbon and Sustainable Actions stock.

SISA does exist. But it has nothing to do with InBECAS. SISA is the state of Acre’s System of Incentives for Environmental Services. SISA applies to the state of Acre, not to the state of Mato Grosso. “Local governments of Brazil SISA” makes no sense whatsoever.