Ecosecurities Group, expects to make net profits of 191 million euros ($261.5 million) by 2012 on sales it has already agreed. That's the good news. The bad news is that The firm made a pretax loss of 12 million euros in the first six months, up from 8.4 million over the same period last year.

Ecosecurities is in the business of carbon offsets - a complex and sometimes disputed method of reducing carbon emissions.