Elaborating the Motivations and Attitudes Driving Interest in Voluntary Biodiversity Credits

Global biodiversity loss has prompted the search for new sources of conservation finance, such as voluntary biodiversity credits (VBCs). However, despite optimistic market projections, current uptake of VBCs is limited. Adopting an interpretive approach, we analyse 21 semi-structured interviews with early market actors (buyers, sellers, intermediaries) in the United Kingdom to elaborate the motivations and attitudes fuelling interest in VBCs. Specifically, our findings show the drivers (including economic, environmental, socio-cultural) and barriers (including financial, reputational, methodological, capacity and policy) that are shaping the nascent market for VBCs. Our study has implications for theorising a changing interpretive domain in which biodiversity loss is becoming more central to strategy. We also offer practical implications from our findings on factors affecting market development.