San Francisco: DNV, one of the world’s leading climate change service providers, is ramping up to meet the burgeoning demand for climate change services in the U.S. Dr. Mark C. Trexler has been hired as director of climate strategies and markets. Eight other new staff members will also join Dr. Trexler in a new DNV office in Portland, Oregon.

Dr. Trexler and his team will help DNV expand its North American climate change related activities, particularly with respect to strategic and market advisory services. His responsibilities will include building the group’s public and private business and client networks around climate advisory services, and providing strategic and market support to DNV’s business units in the U.S and internationally.

Dr. Trexler brings more than 20 years of climate change expertise to DNV. He previously was director at EcoSecurities until that company closed its U.S. consulting operations last month. At EcoSecurities, he directed an international team of consultants providing a wide range of consulting services from carbon inventories and footprinting to carbon market forecasting and corporate strategic planning. Prior to that, Dr. Trexler was president of Trexler Climate + Energy Services, Inc., which he founded in 1991 and which was the first consulting firm to specialize in providing climate change related services to corporate clients. Dr. Trexler was previously with the Climate, Energy, and Pollution Program of the World Resources Institute, and has served on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

“Anticipating changes in U.S. climate change policies that would occur after the 2008 Presidential election, we started last year to build our capacity to provide climate change services in the U.S,” says Stein B. Jensen who heads DNV’s climate change services globally.

48% market share of CDM projects
DNV was the first entity accredited as a verifier under the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Over the past decade DNV has engaged in validation, verification and certification activities related to the Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Joint Implementation programmes, and holds a 48% market share of CDM projects so far. DNV provides carbon footprinting, verification of emission inventories and greenhouse gas offset projects, validation of emission reduction projects, training, and advisory services. In the U.S. DNV also has climate change services staff in Houston and New Jersey and will be expanding during 2009 to provide a variety of related services.

“Mark Trexler has been a key figure in the development of climate change mitigation strategies and policy in the U.S. and internationally, and we are delighted to welcome him and his team to DNV,” says Mr Jensen.