Organisational attitudes and preferences towards forest carbon offsets in Spain's Carbon Footprint Registry

Corporate participation in voluntary carbon offsetting remains limited, yet little is known about how organisations evaluate forest carbon removal options and what drives their offsetting decisions. This study examines the economic and behavioural factors associated with organisational engagement in forest carbon offsetting within Spain's Carbon Footprint Registry. Using a survey that combines the Theory of Planned Behaviour with a Discrete Choice Experiment, we analyse how attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived control interact with preferences for project attributes. The results show that subjective norms and internal managerial attitudes play a prominent role in offsetting behaviour, but their relative importance varies across organisational segments. Organisations with higher emissions show a stronger alignment with internal attitudes towards offsetting, while external expectations from clients, shareholders and competitors are more salient among organisations with lower emissions. Across both groups, organisations display a strong preference for domestic afforestation and forest restoration projects. These findings underscore the importance of market segmentation in voluntary offsetting strategies and provide evidence to inform policies and interventions aimed at supporting net-zero objectives.