CEO of Swiss carbon offset firm South Pole resigns
Renat Heuberger has stepped down as head of the Zurich-based carbon offset provider with immediate effect. The company was recently criticised for exaggerated claims.
Heuberger will be succeeded as CEO of the company on an interim basis by John Davis, who was previously Commercial Director for Asia and the Pacific at South Pole. According to the press release on Friday, the new task would be best performed by a new senior leadership. However, Heuberger will take on a non-executive and advisory role to support the new management.
At the end of October, the company announced that it was ending its collaboration with the controversial Kariba project in Zimbabwe. According to several media reports, the benefits of the Kariba carbon offset project were much lower than assumed. South Pole is nevertheless said to have knowingly continued to sell CO2 certificates from the project.
+ Swiss carbon offset giant pulls plug on Zimbabwe project amid allegations
Green Party politician Bastien Girod also announced his departure from South Pole on the Linkedin portal. He was previously Head of Climate Solutions for the Switzerland, Germany and Austria region. The politician wrote that more scrutiny of climate projects is needed in order to bring more integrity to the evolving global carbon market. After “careful consideration of the information that has recently become public”, he has decided to end his employment at South Pole.
In addition to an interim CEO, the company intends to appoint a chief risk officer to review the entire portfolio of climate change projects.
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