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By Emily, Commercial & Business Development Manager
One of the biggest mistakes I see in the voluntary carbon market (VCM) right now is treating demand as a static list.
Pulling a list of buyers who retired credits in the last 12 months might feel productive, but it’s not a strategy. It’s backward-looking.
The market has gone through a period of scrutiny and recalibration. At the same time, we’re expecting structural demand growth over the next 1-5 years, driven by compliance developments, net zero commitments, and increasing pressure on corporates to show credible decarbonization plans.
That combination means the way we think about demand has to change.
Over the past year, we’ve spent a lot of time refining how we approach this internally. What’s become clear is that if you want to succeed in identifying new demand, you need to look at the market in a more structured way.
For me, that starts with three groups.
Active buyers
Active buyers are the obvious place to begin, but even here, I don’t think it’s enough to just ask “who’s buying?”
The more important questions are:
What are they buying? How are their portfolios constructed? Where might there be reputational or integrity risk?
Looking at vintages, sector behaviour, matched versus unmatched demand, these things tell you far more about future opportunity than a simple buyer list.
I also think fungibility is often underestimated.
There’s a tendency to assume demand is siloed - “I sell biochar, therefore I can only sell to biochar buyers.” But that’s too narrow. If a company has already spent at least $50 on an ARR credit, how difficult is it really to upsell them into biochar?
Understanding where fungibility exists in the market, where integrity positioning and willingness to pay overlap across methodologies, allows us to identify potential buyers beyond the obvious sector labels.
Inactive buyers
Inactive buyers are often misunderstood.
In many cases, they haven’t walked away from the VCM entirely. They’ve stepped back because of reputational concerns, risk exposure, or uncertainty around credit quality.
If we want to see demand return at scale, rebuilding confidence is critical. That means understanding where portfolios may have faced scrutiny and being able to clearly position higher-integrity projects as part of a credible path back into the market.
This isn’t about pretending nothing happened. It’s about recognizing how the market has matured and helping corporates re-engage with greater clarity.
Corporates yet to enter the VCM
The most interesting opportunity, in my view, sits with companies that haven’t yet engaged.
Instead of asking “who bought last year?”, I think we should be asking:
Who is likely to buy next and why?
That requires looking beyond retirements and into structural indicators, profitability relative to emissions, missed targets, SBTi commitments, sector exposure. These are the signals that suggest future demand.
If we’re expecting demand growth over the next few years, then corporate liability becomes part of the conversation.
What is it going to cost a buyer to act in five years’ time rather than now?
How much more expensive does net zero become if companies wait until demand tightens and prices respond accordingly?
The teams that succeed will be the ones preparing for that shift now, not waiting until it shows up in last year’s retirement data.
Looking ahead
Demand in the VCM is becoming more nuanced.
It’s not just about transaction history. It’s about risk, reputation, structural signals, and forward-looking analysis.
This is the thinking that now underpins how we approach demand, internally and in the way we structure our tools. Not as a static buyer database, but as a framework for building real demand strategy.
Because ultimately, success in this market won’t come from tracking who acted yesterday.
It will come from understanding who needs to act tomorrow, and positioning accordingly.