Ex-FIA Europe chief Puleston Jones launches ESG market

The former European head of trade body the FIA Simon Puleston Jones has launched a private market for climate investments aimed at institutional investors.

Climarket is an online marketplace for debt and project finance energy transition, sustainable agriculture, net-zero real estate, water solutions and the circular economy. The platform, which launched on Thursday, uses criteria managed by Climate Solutions, the climate-focused fund raising and strategic consultancy.

There are plans to expand Climarket to include Climate Solutions’ private market equity investments in the near future, the company said in a statement on Thursday.

“Climate Solutions was founded to address an immediate global problem,” Simon Puleston Jones, chief executive officer of Climate Solutions, said in a statement. “Whilst institutional investors are increasingly committing to invest billions, or even trillions, of dollars in climate change solutions by 2030, where can they find quality investment opportunities in which to invest at such scale and pace?

"Climarket directly addresses their demand and brings much-needed transparency to private markets.”

The platform launches with over $175 million (£128m) of secured green bond investment opportunities, and uses private markets fintech Delio.

Puleston Jones, who quit the FIA in early 2019, took his chief executive role at the consultancy in August. He founded Climate Solutions with chief operating officer Bob MacDonald, the former head of clean energy firm Wood’s Specialist Technical Solutions, part of FTSE 250-listed Wood Group, and Paul Camp, Climate Solutions’ head of transactions who launched the world’s first climate bond in 2014.

Puleston Jones was replaced at the FIA by Bruce Savage, a global regulatory affairs and market structure for listed derivatives and clearing head at Deutsche Bank.