Fri, Nov 10th 2023
Zurich – Renat Heuberger is stepping down as head of the Zurich-based climate protection company South Pole with immediate effect. The company was recently criticized. Green National Councillor Bastien Girod is also leaving the company, according to his own message on social media.
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.
Girod 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 Green politician wrote that “more scrutiny of climate projects” is needed in order to “bring more integrity to the evolving global carbon market”. After “carefully reviewing the information that has recently become public”, he has decided to end his employment at South Pole.
At the end of October, the company announced that it was ending its collaboration with the controversial Kariba project in Zimbabwe. The new task should best be performed by a new top management team, according to the press release.
According to several media reports, the benefits of the Kariba carbon offset project were much lower than assumed. Nevertheless, South Pole is said to have knowingly continued to sell CO2 certificates from the project.
In addition to an interim CEO, the company intends to appoint a Chief Risk Officer to review the entire portfolio of climate protection projects. According to the press release, co-founder Heuberger will take on an advisory role to support the new management.
©Keystone/SDA
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