Carbon Pulse has appointed Sonja van Renssen as its first Chief Strategy Officer, to lead editorial and business development projects that will take the company into its next phase of growth. Carbon Pulse has also launched Data Dive, a new data journalism offering, and refreshed its Dossiers, which present the latest facts and figures on emissions trading systems (ETSs) around the world.

Sonja is a Brussels-based energy, climate, and environment journalist with close to 20 years’ experience. Most recently, she was Editor-in-Chief of Energy Monitor (part of GlobalData) from 2021-24. Sonja previously co-founded the start-up Energy Post and has written for many other energy and climate titles over the years, including S&P Global Platts and Nature Climate Change. She has an MA in Biology from the University of Oxford and an MSc in Science Communication from Imperial College London.

“I’m really excited to be joining Carbon Pulse as it looks ahead to a new chapter,” Sonja said. “Since its founding almost ten years ago, it has grown out into a specialised news agency that is the go-to source of information on carbon markets and climate policy.”

Carbon Pulse director and co-founder Mike Szabo said: “Carbon Pulse is providing a growing spread of net-zero news and analysis. Sonja’s job is to work closely with Carbon Pulse’s directors and the team as a whole to structure and focus our editorial and business strategy to grow our value-add whilst adhering to the same rigorous reporting standards that have characterised us from the start.”

One of Sonja’s specific tasks will be to build out Carbon Pulse’s data journalism offering, which it kicked off with the hire in April 2024 of Nick Ferris as Environmental Markets Correspondent.

Nick, based in London, previously worked as a senior climate and energy-focused data journalist at The New Statesman and its sister title Energy Monitor for three-and-a-half years. He has reported from events including COP26, COP28, and the Africa Climate Summit, and his work has appeared in The Independent, The Telegraph, and other UK newspapers.

Nick’s work underpins the launch of a new data journalism offering from Carbon Pulse: Data Dive. This delves deeper into larger energy and climate-related data sets to analyse the figures, identify the trends, and employ visualisations that deliver compelling and insightful news for our subscribers.

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, Carbon Pulse is bolstering its Latin America (LATAM) coverage with a new focus on this region from New York-based Environmental Markets Correspondent Alejandra Padin-Dujon. Alejandra previously covered Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA). She will continue to cover MEA, but will replace Europe with LATAM.

Finally, Carbon Pulse has updated and relaunched its Dossiers, a collection of backgrounders on ETSs around the world produced in collaboration with the International Carbon Action Partnership (ICAP). Each dossier provides the latest facts and figures on an existing or planned ETS, including its status, scope, emissions, targets, revenues, etc. The entries will be kept updated with ICAP’s latest data and analysis, and provide links to further information.

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