What 300 Buyers Tell Us About Today’s Carbon Market

Over the past several years, an important debate in voluntary carbon markets has focused on whether buyers truly value credit quality or whether the market will ultimately become a race to the bottom driven primarily by price. The latest edition of BCG’s carbon credit buyers’ survey, conducted in 2025 with roughly 300 carbon credit buyers, finds that buyers increasingly prioritize credible, measurable carbon impact and are willing to pay more for it.

Building on years of research encompassing 14 industries, we analyzed how buyers evaluate carbon credit quality and make procurement decisions across different credit types and price points. We examined not only which attributes buyers prefer, but also what tradeoffs they make, what prices they are willing to pay under different market conditions, and how they construct credit portfolios under various budget constraints.

Our findings reveal that the voluntary carbon market is evolving in ways that are not readily visible in publicly reported transaction data. Although annual retirements have been flat at roughly 170 to 180 megatons for the past four years, buyers’ target portfolio prices have risen sharply since our 2022 edition of the survey, and substantial latent demand could double the size of the current market. (See the sidebar “What the Headline Carbon Market Numbers Miss.”)

However, that potential is uneven across the market. For some durable carbon removals, particularly direct air capture (DAC) and enhanced rock weathering (ERW), the prices at which suppliers are willing to transact remain significantly above what most mainstream buyers are willing to pay. In other cases, buyers may have room to spend more but struggle to find suitable supply. The result is a market that can simultaneously be both supply-constrained and demand-constrained.

Drawing on our survey results, we examine how buyer preferences have changed since 2022, what those changes suggest about the next phase of the voluntary carbon market, and where the biggest opportunities lie for buyers, intermediaries, project developers, and policymakers.

Buyers Favor Credits with Clear Measurement and Verification

Buyers increasingly define carbon credit quality in terms of carbon integrity—whether a credit’s climate impact is reliably measurable and verifiable—rather than by its broader sustainability outcomes. When forced to make tradeoffs, they overwhelmingly prioritize credits backed by trusted registries and rigorous emissions measurement over attributes such as co-benefits or project revenue sharing. Together, those two factors account for roughly 60% of stated buyer preference, indicating how highly buyers value knowing that a project’s carbon claims can be demonstrated and defended.

This definition of quality shapes the way buyers rank different types of credits. Durable engineered removals—such as bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), DAC, and biochar—rank among the most credible because, in general, the amount of carbon they remove is more directly measurable and verifiable. Credits that depend on more complex assumptions tied to avoided emissions or behavioral change, such as cookstoves, tend to rank lower. (See Exhibit 1.)

Survey respondents broadly agree about most and least credible credit types, but preferences in the middle of the market increasingly depend on what buyers already hold. Companies whose portfolios are less than 15% removals continue to rate nature-based avoidance credits highly, often above DAC or BECCS. Buyers whose portfolios are more than 15% removals place significantly greater weight on engineered removals and less on nature-based avoidance.

Target Portfolio Prices Have Roughly Tripled

Public market data suggest relatively modest changes in voluntary carbon credit prices, but our survey tells a different story. Buyers’ stated target portfolio prices for voluntary carbon credits have roughly tripled since 2022, even though much of that shift is not yet visible in average retired credit prices. (See Exhibit 2.)

In 2022, 84% of buyers targeted portfolio prices of $30 per metric ton or less, and only 3% targeted prices above $50. By early 2026, only around one in five buyers still target prices below $25, while roughly one in four aim for prices between $51 and $100 per metric ton. And a premium segment of buyers are today willing to pay more than $100 per metric ton—a price point that was virtually nonexistent in 2022.

This change in price preferences could create a significant budgeting challenge for procurement teams. In our 2022 survey, buyers expected to pay an average of about $25 to $30 per metric ton by 2030. Organizations that are still planning around those outdated assumptions may find that the credits they need to meet future climate goals now cost substantially more than anticipated.

Some Durable Removals Continue to Face a Supply–Demand Disconnect

In many credit categories, buyers and suppliers are beginning to align on price. At suppliers’ forward median prices, 90% or more of buyers would still consider purchasing nature-based avoidance, nature-based removals, and abatement of non-CO₂ gases. (See Exhibit 3.)

Cookstoves, biochar, and BECCS occupy a workable middle ground. At the median prices that suppliers are seeking for future sales, roughly three-quarters of buyers would still consider purchasing these credits. This helps explain why these markets continue to generate meaningful volume despite commanding prices that are relatively high per metric ton, and it suggests that lower costs could attract even more buyers.

DAC and ERW face a situation where supplier prices exceed what many buyers are willing to pay. For ERW, forward prices of roughly $330 to $390 per metric ton are at a level at which only about four in ten buyers would consider purchasing credits. The gap is even wider for DAC than for ERW. Suppliers’ median asking price for DAC is about $900 per metric ton, but half of buyers are unwilling to pay more than about $365. At $900, fewer than one in ten buyers would consider purchasing DAC credits.

The increasing alignment of buyer and supplier expectations is a sign of progress compared to the situation in previous years. Even so, to reach a broader market, it will be necessary for prices of some of the highest-cost durable removals to drop or for buyers with larger budgets to adopt them.

No Single Credit Type Dominates

When asked what mix of credits they would prefer to buy, assuming that all options met their quality requirements, buyers across all segments favored a diversified portfolio rather than a single type of credit. Every segment chose a combination of credits that avoid emissions and credits that remove carbon from the atmosphere, with durable engineered removals such as ERW, BECCS, and DAC accounting for roughly 20% to 25% of their preferred portfolios. ¹ 1 While removal-only and avoidance-only buyers do exist in the market and were represented in our sample, neither strategy was characteristic of any segment as a whole. When asked to construct their ideal portfolios, a majority of respondents in every segment favored a mix of removal and avoidance credits. (See Exhibit 4.)

Price influences what buyers choose, but cheaper does not always mean more attractive. For credits that aim to avoid emissions, preferences are remarkably consistent across buyer segments. Across all segments, buyers allocated the largest shares of their portfolios at $35 per metric ton to nature-based avoidance and at $20 per metric ton to both non-CO₂ gases and cookstoves, even though these commanded the third highest price points offered in this exercise. Since these were not the lowest prices tested, this suggests that buyers weigh price alongside perceived quality rather than simply choosing to buy a larger number of cheaper credits.

For removals, willingness to pay varies much more widely. The differences are relatively modest for nature-based removals, but they become pronounced for more expensive engineered solutions. For example, commodity buyers allocated most of their biochar credit purchases at around $100 per metric ton, whereas premium buyers allocated most of theirs at $400 per metric ton. For DAC, the equivalent prices range from about $200 to $600, and similar variation appears for BECCS and ERW. (See the sidebar “The Four Segments of Carbon Credit Buyers.”)

These patterns reinforce a broader finding from our research: buyers consider price alongside quality rather than simply maximizing allocations to the cheapest credits. Higher prices can constrain demand, particularly for expensive removals, but lower prices do not automatically increase it. In some cases, particularly for avoidance credits, buyers allocated less of their portfolios at the lowest prices tested, suggesting that respondents had doubts about the quality of credits whose prices they perceived as being too low.

The Market Is Both Supply- and Demand-Constrained

The voluntary carbon market has seen little growth in retirement volumes over the last four years, creating frustration across the ecosystem. Developers argue there is insufficient demand; buyers argue there is not enough credible supply, especially at the price points they want. Our survey suggests both are right.

If they could obtain that credits meet their minimum quality requirements, buyers say that they would prefer somewhat different—and more expensive—portfolios than the ones they hold today. At average market prices, their current portfolios cost $55 per metric ton. But if sufficient credits meeting their quality requirements were available, they would shift their mix of credits, raising the average portfolio cost to about $68 per metric ton. That $13 increase represents roughly $800 million in additional annual market value at current retirement volumes.

Buyers also express a willingness to pay more for some of the credits they prefer. If each type of credit in their preferred mix were priced at the level at which buyer demand for it was strongest, the average portfolio value would rise further, to about $79 per metric ton. The shift toward a more expensive mix of credits and buyers’ willingness to pay more for that mix could increase the portfolio value by $24 per metric ton—adding nearly $1.5 billion in annual market value without any increase in the number of credits purchased.

But a willingness to pay more for individual credits does not mean that buyers have enough budget to build an entire portfolio at those prices. Across the market, buyers target an average portfolio price of $58 per metric ton, which is only $3 above what their portfolios cost today and significantly below the $79 suggested by their preferred mix at the prices where demand is strongest. In other words, buyers may value higher-priced credits without having the budgets to buy as many of them as they would like, which helps explain why latent willingness to pay has not yet fully translated into a substantial increase in transactions.

The nature of the constraint differs sharply by buyer segment. Premium and carbon-intense quality seekers are already the biggest spenders on credits today, and many are willing to spend more. But even their target budgets are not high enough to buy the portfolios that they say they would most prefer. For commodity and early-days buyers, target prices are already below what their portfolios cost today. (See Exhibit 5.) They are therefore paying more per credit than they would like, leaving little room to increase purchases or shift toward more expensive credits—and potentially making it difficult for similar buyers to enter the market.

These dynamics help explain how the market can be supply- and demand-constrained at the same time. At the higher end, buyers have room to pay more but may struggle to find enough credible credits that meet their needs at acceptable prices. At the lower end, buyers have little room to increase purchases or to move toward more expensive credits.

Unlocking growth requires different solutions for different buyers. At the higher end, converting buyers’ willingness to spend into actual purchases—and attracting more buyers at those price points—could create the level of demand that developers need in order to bring more supply to market. At the lower end, growth depends on suppliers making credible credits available at prices that buyers can afford, on buyers increasing their budgets, or both. Overall, it is clear that better matching of products, prices, and commercial models to these different needs could deliver substantial market value even before factoring in the effects of volume growth.

Implications for Buyers, Intermediaries, Project Developers, and Regulators

Our survey findings point to a voluntary carbon market that is evolving quickly, with important implications for buyers, intermediaries, developers, and regulators:

• Buyers. The greatest risk for buyers involves making decisions on the basis of outdated assumptions. Organizations that rely on prices and definitions of quality from a few years ago for their budgeting may find that they lack funding for the types of credits they want to buy in the future. At the same time, they may give too much weight to attributes that are becoming less important in how the market assesses quality. Procurement frameworks built around whether a credit’s climate impact is reliably measurable and defensible, rather than around fixed preferences for particular credit types, will be in a better position to adapt as the market evolves.
• Intermediaries. Our findings reinforce the importance of market segmentation and portfolio thinking. No single credit type dominates buyer demand, and buyers generally prefer diversified portfolios. These factors create a significant commercial opportunity for intermediaries to better match products, pricing, and commercial models to buyers’ needs, aggregating fragmented supply into the diversified portfolios that buyers want and can afford. As the market matures, competitive advantage will increasingly arise from possessing a deeper understanding of these different buyer segments and tailoring products, pricing, and sales strategies accordingly.
• Project Developers. The cost of producing and delivering credits determines which buyer segments a project can realistically serve and whether sufficient demand exists at the required price and volume to make the project viable. This challenge is most acute for durable removals, but it also affects the development of higher-priced nature-based projects. For mature credit categories where buyers are willing to pay the prices that suppliers are seeking, the priority is to produce sufficient credible, high-quality supply. For frontier removals that fall outside most buyers’ budgets, growth is likely to depend on longer-term commitments from buyers, including agreements to purchase future credits, as well as other forms of early financing that can help projects scale and reduce costs over time.
• Regulators. For regulators and standard setters, three priorities could help convert current demand into transactions. First, improving existing systems for assessing quality—including registries, methodologies, third-party ratings, and more standardized information about credits—could make it easier for buyers to evaluate credits with confidence. Second, new approaches to appraising some types of carbon removal may be necessary in contexts when it is difficult to measure precisely how much removal is attributable to a particular intervention. For ERW, for example, some corporate buyers could pay developers to deploy and operate projects, with additional payments tied to removals as they are verified. Alternatively, buyers could finance ERW primarily for its agricultural benefits, with carbon removal treated as a co-benefit and measured over longer periods. Similar approaches may be relevant for other open-system removal methods, such as ocean alkalinity enhancement and soil carbon sequestration. Some of the most important forms of supply may not fit neatly into a per-metric-ton crediting system, in which case designing financing models that accurately reflect their contribution is likely to mark the next stage of market development. Third, clearer guidance on the role of high-integrity credits in corporate climate strategies may give buyers greater confidence to act. Buyers in our survey indicated a willingness to pay, but uncertainty about how regulators will recognize these purchases can hold back spending. SBTi’s Ongoing Emissions Responsibility framework provides one approach, but greater clarity from standard-setters could help translate more demand into actual purchases.

Our 2022 survey asked whether buyers would pay for quality. The answer was yes. The more pressing questions today are whether supply can meet buyer demand at acceptable prices and whether market frameworks can recognize and unlock the demand that already exists. The answers to these questions remain mixed. Efforts to close the gap between buyer demand and what the market can deliver will define the carbon market over the next several years.