Carbon Credit Buyers Are Willing to Pay More, But Supply Gaps Are Holding the Market Back

The voluntary carbon market is sending a clear signal: buyers want higher-quality credits and they're prepared to pay more for them. A new survey by Boston Consulting Group (BCG), published September 24, 2026, found that carbon credit buyers' target portfolio prices have roughly tripled since 2022, and that unmet demand could add nearly $1.5 billion in annual market value without requiring any increase in the number of credits purchased.

The findings come from BCG's latest carbon credit buyers' survey, which gathered responses from approximately 300 buyers across 14 industries in 2025. It builds on the firm's 2022 edition, which first asked whether buyers would pay for quality. The short answer then was yes. The harder questions now are whether supply can meet that demand and whether market frameworks can actually unlock it.

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Target Prices Have Shifted Dramatically

In 2022, 84% of buyers targeted portfolio prices of $30 per metric ton or less, and only 3% aimed above $50. By early 2026, only about one in five buyers still targets prices below $25, while roughly one in four is now aiming for $51 to $100 per metric ton. A growing premium segment is willing to pay more than $100 per metric ton, a price point that was virtually nonexistent four years ago.

BCG warns this is a real problem for corporate procurement teams still working from old assumptions. Organizations planning around 2022 price targets may find that the credits they need to meet future climate commitments cost substantially more than budgeted.

Quality Is the Defining Factor

Buyers aren't just chasing cheaper options. They're increasingly focused on carbon integrity, meaning whether a credit's climate impact is reliably measurable and verifiable. According to the survey, those two factors alone account for roughly 60% of stated buyer preference.

This shift is pushing stronger interest in durable engineered removals. Technologies like bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), direct air capture (DAC), and biochar ranked highest for credibility because the carbon they remove is more directly quantifiable. Credits tied to avoided emissions or behavioral change, such as cookstove projects, ranked lower.

The quality trend shows up in the data too. The share of retired credits rated BBB+ or above doubled in five years, from 12% in 2020 to 24% in 2025, and those higher-rated credits now command prices four to five times those of lower-rated alternatives.

The DAC and ERW Price Gap Remains Wide

For most credit types, buyers and suppliers are getting closer to agreement on price. DAC and enhanced rock weathering (ERW) are a different story.

Suppliers' median asking price for DAC is around $900 per metric ton. Half of buyers, though, are unwilling to pay more than about $365. At $900, fewer than one in ten buyers would even consider a DAC purchase. ERW is in similar territory, with forward prices of roughly $330 to $390 per metric ton falling within range for only about four in ten buyers.

BCG says closing these gaps will likely require significant cost reductions through scale, longer-term purchase commitments from larger-budget buyers, and early financing mechanisms that help frontier removal projects get off the ground.

A Market Constrained on Both Sides

One of the report's most telling findings is that the market is stuck in two directions at once. Annual retirements have been flat at roughly 170 to 180 megatons for four consecutive years, even as buyer preferences have shifted meaningfully toward higher-quality, higher-cost credits.

BCG's analysis shows that if buyers could access credits meeting their minimum quality requirements, they would shift to a more expensive mix, raising average portfolio cost from $55 to about $68 per metric ton. That $13 gap represents roughly $800 million in additional annual market value at current retirement volumes. If buyers also paid the prices at which demand for each credit type is strongest, the average portfolio value would rise further to about $79 per metric ton, adding nearly $1.5 billion in annual value.

The catch is that most buyers don't have the budget to match their preferences. Their average target portfolio price sits at $58 per metric ton, only $3 above current spending and well below the $79 implied by their stated preferences. The result, as BCG puts it, is a market that is simultaneously supply-constrained and demand-constrained.

What Needs to Change

BCG lays out recommendations for each stakeholder group. Buyers need to update their pricing assumptions and build procurement frameworks around measurability rather than fixed credit-type preferences. Intermediaries have an opportunity to aggregate fragmented supply into the diversified portfolios buyers actually want, since no single credit type dominates buyer demand. Project developers need to tailor strategies to specific buyer segments, with longer-term commitments and early financing being especially critical for frontier removals.

For regulators and standard-setters, BCG identifies three priorities: strengthening quality assessment systems including registries, methodologies, and third-party ratings; developing new appraisal approaches for open-system removals like ocean alkalinity enhancement and soil carbon; and providing clearer guidance on how high-integrity credits count in corporate climate strategies. The report notes that the Science Based Targets initiative's Ongoing Emissions Responsibility framework offers one path forward, though broader clarity from standard-setters could help convert latent demand into real transactions.

Meanwhile, compliance-driven demand from CORSIA, the international aviation carbon-offsetting scheme, and Article 6 of the Paris Agreement is adding to overall market pressure in ways that don't even show up in voluntary retirement figures, making the case for market reform even stronger.

About Boston Consulting Group

Boston Consulting Group is a global management consulting firm and the world's leading advisor on business strategy. Founded in 1963 and headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, BCG partners with organizations across the private, public, and nonprofit sectors to drive transformative change. The firm's climate and carbon markets research spans hundreds of buyers across more than a dozen industries, with the goal of helping businesses and policymakers navigate the evolving voluntary carbon market and accelerate the transition to net zero.

Source: Boston Consulting Group, "What 300 Buyers Tell Us About Today's Carbon Market," September 24, 2026