The CORSIA Market: Buyers, Sellers and Intermediaries

The market for CORSIA-eligible units does not look like a commodity market. There is no exchange, no screen price, and no standard contract. Understanding how it actually functions is a prerequisite for transacting in it competently.

Who Is on Each Side

Note the second row. Corporate voluntary buyers increasingly want corresponding-adjusted units for the integrity of their own claims, which means operators compete with corporate demand for the same scarce pool. That competition is frequently left out of supply forecasts.

Why There Is No Exchange

Commodity exchanges need fungible products. CORSIA-eligible units are not fungible in practice.

Two units from different projects differ in vintage, programme, methodology, host State, authorisation terms, permanence arrangements and documentation completeness. A buyer facing an audit in three years cares about all of those. Standardising them away would defeat the diligence the criteria require.

Add thin volume and the result is a bilateral, negotiated, individually documented market.

Routes to Supply

Direct from developers

Best pricing and best documentation access, because there is no intermediary margin and you deal with the party that holds the evidence.

The cost is that you conduct full due diligence yourself and carry counterparty risk with an entity that may be small, unfamiliar and in another jurisdiction.

Through brokers and intermediaries

Faster access to supply and some aggregation of small parcels.

Quality of understanding varies enormously. Some intermediaries know the eligibility criteria in detail and will show you their work; others are passing through a seller's description. Both are legitimate businesses, but you need to know which you are dealing with so you can size your own effort accordingly.

Through programme and platform mechanisms

Some crediting programmes and platforms facilitate matching. Useful for discovery.

Your diligence obligation does not transfer. A listing is not a verification.

Through forward agreements

Contracting future issuance from a project in development. Secures supply, often at better pricing, at the cost of taking delivery, authorisation and vintage risk.

Those risks should be allocated explicitly in the agreement. Left implicit, they sit with the buyer.

Assessing an Intermediary

Set the relationship up deliberately.

Establish what they actually are. A broker introducing buyer to seller has different obligations and incentives from a trader selling from their own book. Ask which, and how they are paid — a commission on volume and a margin on a proprietary position pull in different directions.

Test their understanding early. One question does it: how do you establish that a unit carries a corresponding adjustment?

An intermediary who answers with a specific evidence chain — designated national authority, authorisation document, unit identifiers, national reporting — understands the market. One who answers "the project confirms it" does not.

Ask what they verify. Some conduct genuine diligence and will show you their work. Others pass through the seller's description.

Do not let them hold your diligence file. You need the evidence in your own records, in a form that survives the relationship ending.

Understand the delivery chain. If the intermediary does not hold the units, delivery depends on a counterparty you have not assessed. Ask who holds them and whether you can verify that holding in the registry.

Consequences of Illiquidity

Price discovery is expensive

Establishing a fair price means talking to multiple sellers and understanding what each unit's documentation actually supports. Buyers who take the first quote frequently overpay; buyers who grind purely on price frequently end up with documentation gaps.

Timing risk is asymmetric

In a liquid market, a buyer who waits pays the market price. In an illiquid one, a buyer who waits may find the available supply for their compliance period has been contracted by someone else.

Forward contracting therefore has a value beyond price hedging — it secures existence, not just cost.

Counterparty quality varies widely

The scarcity premium has attracted intermediaries whose understanding of eligibility is thin. Language like "CORSIA-ready", "CORSIA-aligned" and "eligible pending authorisation" describes units that are not currently eligible. Those phrases are marketing, not standards.

What Sellers Should Understand About Buyers

An airline is not buying a story. It is buying regulatory discharge — a unit that, when cancelled and reported, reduces its obligation by one tonne in the eyes of its national authority.

This changes what sells.

Sellers who lead with the voluntary market pitch lose deals to sellers with weaker projects and stronger paperwork. That is a rational buyer response: the airline will be verified and possibly audited years later, and it needs evidence, not narrative.

A seller who can send the authorisation document, programme approval evidence, vintage confirmation and verification report in a single reply is doing something most sellers cannot, and it moves conversations forward faster than any amount of project story.

Where to Go Next

• CORSIA credit pricing — what sets the number
• Supply and demand outlook — why supply is thin
• Corresponding adjustments — the constraint behind it all
• Registries and cancellation — how units actually move

DSTechnoverse works both sides of this market — sourcing and diligence for operators, eligibility screening and buyer matching for developers. Talk to our team or apply as a CORSIA buyer or seller.