King Abdullah Financial District looks different at sunset. The glass towers pick up an amber glow that makes the whole place feel like it is mid announcement, always about to tell you something. On 30 June 2026, it did.
Saudi Tadawul Group and the Regional Voluntary Carbon Market Company rang the bell in Riyadh to unveil CMF Select Red Sea 2026, the first sustainability focused edition of the Capital Markets Forum Select. Investors, corporates, policymakers and sustainability leaders will gather under one roof to talk about where capital markets, climate finance and carbon markets now overlap, a conversation that barely registered in Riyadh’s financial circles a few years back.
But the forum is really the setup. The payoff is VCM’s plan to use the platform to launch Saudi Arabia’s first ever homegrown carbon credits later this year, credits generated entirely from projects inside the Kingdom. More than 30 of those projects are already moving through the pipeline, covering nature based solutions, industrial decarbonization and newer carbon removal technology. Saudi Arabia is not waiting for the global carbon market to mature around it. It is building its own supply chain for one.
The MoU signing tells you how seriously the Kingdom’s biggest names are taking this. Over 30 companies put pen to paper at the ceremony, PIF, Red Sea Global, Maaden, Almarai, ArcelorMittal, Bank Albilad and Saudi Aramco Base Oil Company among them, alongside names as varied as BYD Al Futtaim and Fakeeh Care. That is not a niche sustainability crowd. That is a cross section of the Saudi economy showing up for carbon markets the same way it shows up for oil and infrastructure deals.
“The inaugural Saudi Carbon Credits launch on VCM’s platform will be a landmark moment for the Saudi market, reflecting the progress made in developing Saudi-originated carbon credits and building a credible carbon market ecosystem.”
Fadi Saadeh, CEO, VCM
Eng. Khalid Al Hussan, CEO of Saudi Tadawul Group, calls it a natural evolution rather than a pivot. “As sustainability becomes increasingly relevant to investors, businesses and economies around the world, expanding the CMF Select into this space is a natural evolution of the platform,” he says, adding that the forum reinforces Saudi Arabia’s position as a growing hub for investment and market development.
VCM CEO Fadi Saadeh is blunter about the stakes. He calls the carbon credits launch a landmark moment, one that reflects real progress building a credible carbon market rather than a symbolic first step. VCM has the receipts to back that up. It ran the largest ever carbon credit auction in Nairobi, launched the region’s biggest carbon exchange at COP29, and has already moved millions of tons of credits through its platform.
None of that happened by accident, and none of it happened far from KAFD. Every major capital markets announcement staged from the district reinforces the same pitch the district itself makes just by existing: this is where Gulf finance writes its next chapter before anywhere else gets to read it.
