Research9 Biodiversity

Voluntary Biodiversity Credits — Strategic Adjacency to Carbon for a LATAM Project-OS

Research date: 2026-04-25 Audience: Carbon-project software founder (LATAM, project-side OS) Question framed: Is voluntary biodiversity a real adjacent product, or a footnote? If real, how do we ride it?

1. Market overview — why now

The voluntary biodiversity credit (VBC) market sits in a strange dual reality. By project count and credits issued, it is still a cottage industry: Bloom Labs’ Q4-2025 census tracked 134 active or in-pipeline VBC projects globally, 2.5M+ hectares, ~15M credits planned, with only 22% actively issuing, and median realized credit prices of $27 (range $2–$2,700) (Bloom Labs Q4-2025 census). Realized cumulative voluntary sales sit somewhere between $325k and $1.87M depending on how you count (Wunder 2025, Wiley).

By forward expectation, however, the market is being modelled aggressively: industry research houses peg the broader “biodiversity & natural capital credit” category (compliance + voluntary + habitat banking) at $2.8B–$7.1B in 2025 with 23–24% CAGR projections to ~$38–$48B by 2033–2034 (Marketintelo, Grandview, InsightAce). These numbers blend regulated UK BNG flows (£200M+/yr at ~£30k/unit, 197 sellers, ~28k units listed — see §6) with sub-million-dollar voluntary sales, so they should be read as TAM-sizing rather than current revenue.

The “why now” stack:

• Kunming-Montreal GBF (Dec 2022) — 196 governments committed to halt+reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. Targets 15 (corporate disclosure), 19 (resource mobilization, “$200B/yr by 2030”), and 21 (data) all imply a private-finance pipeline that doesn’t exist yet.
• TNFD adoption inflected — 500+ companies and 129 financial institutions covering $17.7T AUM had committed to TNFD-aligned reporting by Jan 2025 (TNFD 2025 Status Report, Nat Cap Research). The Feb 2025 IFRS-Foundation MoU plugs TNFD into ISSB. 50%+ of investors now describe themselves as “very concerned” about nature loss as a financial risk.
• UK BNG operational since Feb 2024 — first national mandatory biodiversity offset scheme at scale; supply normalized in 2025–26.
• Australia Nature Repair Market live since March 2025 — first legislated voluntary national biodiversity scheme.
• EU Nature Credits Roadmap (July 7, 2025) — Commission committed to a certification framework by 2027 (Commission press).
• France’s voluntary scheme launched alongside the 2016 mandatory offsets law, anchored by CDC Biodiversité + EIB partnership (EIB July 2025).
• Verra Nature Framework opened to all projects January 1, 2026 under SD VISta (Verra).
• JPMorgan + Carbon Direct white paper, Oct 16, 2025 — six-principle framework explicitly linking VCM nature projects to biodiversity outcomes (Carbon Direct).

The split: voluntary credits hold ~72% of total biodiversity-credit market share by 2025 segment data, but compliance markets (UK BNG, French ARB/RNCN, Australia NRM) drive the dollar volume. The voluntary segment is what scales globally; the compliance segment is what proves the unit-economic concept.

2. Standards landscape — comprehensive

Bloom Labs catalogued 35 distinct biodiversity-credit schemes; the top 10 hold 71% of project count and 96% of credits issued. The active set:

Common threads: no standardized unit, IAPB explicitly opposes a fungible global metric (IAPB Framework). Every standard’s “credit” means something different (m², ha-year, indicator-species sighting, basket-score uplift). Buyers are pricing claims, not units.

3. LATAM-native players — deep dive

LATAM is the structural winner of voluntary biodiversity, holding 40% of project count and 77% of project area globally (Bloom Labs). The standout assets:

Terrasos (Colombia)

• Founded 2013; manages the largest portfolio of habitat banks in Colombia — 2,500 ha actively managed across 4 departments, 30-year minimum durability (Terrasos).
• Colombia overall: 16 habitat banks, 8,144+ ha (national figure).
• Sells “Voluntary Biodiversity Credits” (VBCs) as Tebu Units = 10 m² for 20+ years.
• 2025 partnerships: ISA + Terrasos for endangered-species credits; ClimateTrade + Terrasos for distribution; Esri purchased 10 Tebu Units = 100 m² in El Globo Habitat Bank.
• Stated goal: $1M VBC sales by 2025.
• Authored “Protocol for the Issuance of Voluntary Biodiversity Credits” — used as reference framework by EPIC + Partnerships for Forests.

re.green (Brazil)

• May 2025: closed R$80M ($16M) BNDES Climate Fund deal with Bradesco-issued guarantee letter. First-ever biodiversity labeling on a Brazilian restoration project, and first restoration project anywhere to receive S&P Shades-of-Green “Dark Green” rating (highest grade) (ESG News, re.green release).
• 16,000 ha across Atlantic Forest + Amazon. Operates more like a green-bond issuer than a credit issuer — but the biodiversity label is the leading edge of biodiversity-labeled debt, an adjacent revenue stream most carbon developers ignore.

Mombak (Brazil)

• $30M USV-led Series B in April 2025. Microsoft 1.5Mt offtake by 2032; Google 200kt deal in Nov 2025 (largest single carbon-removal contract ever) (Mongabay, BNN Bloomberg).
• Restoring 20,000 ha Pará-state pasture with 80+ native species, 1,700 seedlings/ha.
• Biodiversity claim is bundled into carbon credit rather than a separately-traded VBC; positions Mombak as the “1-of-185 projects to meet biodiversity standards” per Symbiosis review.

Savimbo (Colombia)

• Indigenous-led; first methodology approved under Cercarbono BCP. Jaguar-as-indicator-species. 18 indigenous communities + hundreds of smallfarmers; >72,000 ha protected (Mongabay 2024).
• Google Cloud partnership for premium credit production (Google Cloud Blog).
• Credits valid 2 months — the highest-frequency biodiversity credit on the market; data-rich product.

Cercarbono (Colombia)

• Colombia-based carbon certifier; first to publish a final biodiversity protocol (BCP). Has 200+ active carbon projects across LATAM/Asia/Africa.
• Uses carbon-quality principles (additionality, no double-counting, permanence) for biodiversity. Reference standard for any LATAM developer wanting a known certifier.

FRONTERRA (Peru)

• Sierra del Divisor 1.3M ha — the largest single biodiversity project globally by area.

Sustainable land deals

• BTG Pactual TIG has $500M+ in LATAM reforestation funds with biodiversity overlays — separate biodiversity claim is in their roadmap.
• Pachama, NCX, Sylvera-rated developers in LATAM increasingly add biodiversity co-benefit scoring as standard.

LATAM read-through: the structural advantage is real (biome density + cheap labor + first-mover Cercarbono + Indigenous-cultural authenticity), but the realized VBC dollar volume is still tiny. Where LATAM developers actually monetize biodiversity in 2025–26 is via:

1. Premium pricing on stacked carbon (“biodiversity-uplift” VCM credits at +20–50% premium),
2. Biodiversity-labeled debt (re.green precedent),
3. Direct VBC sales to ESG-mandated corporates (Terrasos / Savimbo precedent).

4. Buyer demand map

The buyer side is where this market is genuinely undercooked. Demand signals worth tracking:

Symbiosis Coalition (Google, Meta, Microsoft, Salesforce)

• 20Mt nature-based CDR by 2030. Selection criteria explicitly require “net positive outcomes for biodiversity” alongside financial transparency and IPLC equity (Business Wire May 2024).
• Of 185 projects screened, only Mombak fully met the bar — biodiversity is now de facto Symbiosis filter criterion.
• Note on QC9: Symbiosis criteria don’t directly cite GBF Target 19 or the QC9 indicator label, but their criteria operate as a private-sector implementation of Target 19 monitoring.

JPMorgan Chase + Carbon Direct (Oct 16, 2025)

• “Optimizing for Biodiversity in Nature-Based VCM Projects” — six-principle framework. Built on analysis of 1,639 VCM projects (JPM PDF).
• Key principles: biodiversity benefits are local (no global comparability), reporting timelines decouple from carbon crediting periods, MMRV must reflect outcome-appropriate timelines.
• Strategic: JPM is the largest US financier of nature; Carbon Direct screens ~$2B/yr of VCM purchases. This guidance becomes the de facto buyer-side standard for sophisticated corporate buyers.

Apple Restore Fund

• Doubled fund to ~$1B AUM with Climate Asset Management; Sept 2025 added Gualala Redwood Forest (14,000 ac, biodiversity hotspot supporting 200+ wildlife species) (Apple press).
• Atlantic Forest project (March 2024) and New Zealand 8,600 ha (Nov 2025) — explicit biodiversity-uplift framing alongside carbon and financial returns.
• Apple is the cleanest large-corporate exemplar of stacked-claim purchasing.

Microsoft / Salesforce / Google standalone

• Microsoft’s 1.5Mt Mombak offtake = highest-profile stacked-claim carbon deal ever.
• Salesforce: Net Positive Pledge includes biodiversity targets; member of Symbiosis.
• Google Cloud partnered with Savimbo to industrialize indigenous-led biodiversity credit production.

TNFD adopter universe

• 500+ companies, $6.5T market cap; 129 FIs, $17.7T AUM (TNFD). Most TNFD adopters need something in their disclosures around impact reduction → that “something” increasingly includes biodiversity credit purchases.

Frontier

• Frontier itself remains carbon-removal pure-play (BECCS, DAC, biomass) — does NOT directly buy biodiversity credits. But its definition of “high-quality nature-based” implicitly demands biodiversity, even if not paid for separately.

Buyer-side ratings absent

• BeZero and Sylvera score biodiversity as a co-benefit on a 1–5 scale, but neither has launched a standalone biodiversity-credit rating product as of early 2026. This is a white space — when ratings arrive, demand certainty rises sharply.

Bottom line on demand: there are 5–10 named anchor buyers (Apple, Microsoft, Google, Meta, Salesforce, JPM-advised corporates, TNFD-disclosed FIs) and they are paying premium for stacked carbon-with-biodiversity more readily than for standalone biodiversity credits. Standalone-VBC demand exists but is small and concentrated in ESG-positioning purchases ($25–$100/credit, low volume).

5. MRV technology stack

The MRV stack is bifurcating into species-level ground truth (eDNA, acoustic, camera trap) and landscape-level proxies (satellite + AI).

eDNA

• NatureMetrics (UK) — $25M Series B in 2025 led by Just Climate. Habitat Insights geospatial tool launched Feb 2025; integrates with eDNA species data. Claims $2.8B in prevented project delays (NatureMetrics).
• Pelagic Data Systems, Mosaic Biodiversity — adjacent eDNA service shops, marine + freshwater specialty.
• eDNA is the closest thing to a biodiversity equivalent of the carbon LiDAR/MRV moment. Cost has fallen ~10x in five years; species coverage is genuinely good for fish/amphibian/microbial; mammals + birds still patchy.

Acoustic monitoring

• Rainforest Connection (RFCx) — repurposed-phone solar Guardians; >7,000 species + 310 threatened species detected. Real impact: Puerto Rico protected-area boundary changes, Brazil reforestation strategy validation.
• Wildlife Acoustics, Soundclim — hardware/SaaS players.
• Acoustic is the strongest proxy for “is the ecosystem alive” — well-suited to a Verra Nature Framework or Wallacea basket.

Camera traps + AI

• Wildlife Insights (Google + Conservation Intl.) — 60M+ camera-trap images analyzed; Mbaza AI variant for African forests; Reolink, Bushnell as hardware OEMs.
• Industrialized for forest mammals; real-time alerting still expensive.

Satellite + AI (commoditizing fastest)

• Planet Forest Carbon Diligence + Biodiversity Layer — global 30m Forest Carbon Diligence already used by Verra projects; biodiversity indices being layered on.
• Restor — SEED Biocomplexity Index (ETH Zurich), 0–1 score per ecoregion across 867 terrestrial ecoregions; integrated NICFI satellite imagery across 64 tropical countries; FAO FERM partnership; ERS certification partnership (Restor).
• Pivotal Indices — composite biodiversity index combining Pivotal-collected eDNA + acoustics + satellite, sold as a data product to credit issuers.

Integration friction

• No interoperability standard. Each MRV vendor has its own data model. Verra Nature Framework deliberately stays “indicator agnostic” — burdens projects with format choice.
• Time horizons mismatch carbon. JPMorgan/Carbon Direct guidance flags this explicitly: biodiversity outcomes manifest on different (often longer) timelines than carbon sequestration. MRV cadence must accommodate.
• Ground-truth still expensive. A single eDNA campaign (3 visits × 6 sites) typically runs $15–30k; a project under Wallacea/PV Nature methodology often needs $80–200k of MRV/yr at scale. This is 4–10× the typical MRV spend on a comparable carbon project.

6. Compliance markets

UK BNG (mandatory since Feb 2024)

• 197 sites registered to sell units (up from 46 a year prior); ~28,000 habitat units listed; only ~1,500 sold (Savills).
• Average unit price ~£30,000; range varies widely by habitat distinctiveness.
• Dec 2025 reform: new 0.2 ha de minimis exemption (removes 30%+ of small developments); self-build exemption sunsets July 31 2026.
• NSIP extension: mandatory 10% net gain on Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects from Nov 2 2026 (Pinsent Masons) — this is the single biggest demand-side event for UK BNG in 2026.
• Supply glut concern: 28k listed vs. 1.5k sold = 19:1. Prices may fall; some habitat-bank operators stranded.

Australia Nature Repair Market

• Live March 2025. Only 1 project registered as of late 2025. Fundamental demand-side problem: no mandatory buyer.
• Method 1 (“replanting native forest and woodland”) finalized; methods 2-3 (“Enhancing Native Vegetation,” “Protect and Conserve”) in development.
• PwC modelled $137B financial flow potential by 2050 — purely theoretical at current adoption.

France RNCN / ARB voluntary

• Builds on 2016 mandatory offset law. Green Industry Act (Oct 2023) created the renaturation framework. EIB + CDC Biodiversité partnership signed 2025 to study market depth.

EU Nature Credits (2027 horizon)

• Roadmap published July 7 2025; certification framework due 2027; Green Assist pilots running 2025–27.
• An EU-wide nature-credit certification by 2027 would be the single largest catalyst in this market.

LATAM compliance precedents

• Costa Rica PSA (1997–present): 1.3M ha contracted, $524M cumulative investment, 18,000+ families. Bundles carbon, biodiversity, water, landscape. Compliance precedent — but funded primarily by water-tariff-based mechanism, not corporate buyers.
• Colombia BanCO2: voluntary scheme; municipalities + corporates pay rural families for forest/biodiversity stewardship. Operational nationally.
• Brazil PSA (Pagamento por Serviços Ambientais): 2021 federal law (14.119/2021); state-level programs in São Paulo, Acre, Espírito Santo. Re.green’s BNDES Climate Fund deal sits in this regulatory neighborhood.

7. Stacking with carbon

The most valuable concept for a carbon-software company. Two models:

Bundled

Single project, single credit, biodiversity claim embedded in carbon credit. Buyer gets one tonne CO2e + biodiversity narrative. Examples: Mombak with Microsoft/Google, Apple Restore Fund projects.

Stacked

Single project, two separate credit streams (e.g., 1 tCO2e VCS + 1 Tebu Unit Cercarbono BCP). Sold to two distinct buyers. Bloom Labs reports 27% of biodiversity projects do “stacked separate sales,” 9% do “bundled combined sales”; remaining 64% are biodiversity-only.

Anti-double-counting

• Verra SD VISta Nature Framework: stacking permitted only with VCS Program carbon (closed system) (Verra).
• Cercarbono BCP: explicit no-double-counting principle inherited from carbon program.
• The risk is outcome fragmentation — same hectare’s “biodiversity uplift” sold to one buyer; same hectare’s “carbon” sold to another; both buyers separately claim “nature-positive.” Unless registries link IDs, integrity erodes.
• IAPB explicit position: does not support secondary markets at this stage; compensation must be local-to-local + like-for-like (IAPB).

Buyer accounting

• TNFD — biodiversity credit purchases count toward “nature-related opportunities” disclosure but do not offset impact disclosures.
• SBTi FLAG — silent on biodiversity credits; carbon-only.
• SBTN (Science Based Targets for Nature) — actively developing nature-target methodology; biodiversity credits are a permitted-but-supplementary lever for impact reduction targets, NOT a substitute.
• GHG Protocol Land Sector — separates land-emissions accounting from biodiversity claims; corporates can stack but must report separately.

For a project developer, stacking is currently a 20–50% revenue uplift on the same hectare (if both credit streams sell). The realized share of stacked vs. carbon-only is still small (~9–27% per Bloom data), but rising fast.

8. Pricing + market size forecast

Voluntary credit prices:

• Median realized: $27/credit (Bloom Labs)
• Average: ~$230/credit (skewed by outliers)
• Quality range: high-quality $15–$85/unit vs low-quality $3–$10
• Outlier range: $7 to $41,000 per unit for 100-year conservation periods (Carbon Pulse)
• Restoration premium: ~3× preservation pricing
• Cost per ha/year: ~$980 (post-outlier-trim; gross average ~$3,100)

Premium for stacked carbon-biodiversity is the cleanest signal: Apple, Microsoft, Symbiosis members are paying ~$30–$80/tCO2e for bundled-biodiversity carbon vs ~$15–$30/tCO2e for plain ARR/REDD+ — a 2x+ uplift on the highest-quality nature-based carbon.

9. Cross-sell economics for carbon developers

Modeled for a typical 5,000 ha Atlantic Forest ARR project issuing 50,000 tCO2e/yr:

The headline: 2x revenue per project, with ~2.5x MRV cost and 2x registry/software complexity. The incremental cost is meaningful, but the margin expansion is real if the buyer-side actually pays the premium — and Symbiosis + Apple data say they are.

For a software OS, this implies a clean rule: every carbon developer client is a biodiversity-credit prospect within 24 months, and the natural unit of cross-sell is “add the biodiversity module.”

10. Strategic implication for a LATAM project-side OS

v1 question — should we ship biodiversity capability now?

No, but ship the schema for it.

Reasons not to fully ship v1:

• Realized voluntary biodiversity volume is sub-$2M cumulative globally. Per-developer ARR contribution is negligible in 2026.
• Methodology fragmentation is severe — Verra Nature Framework, Plan Vivo PV Nature, Wallacea, Cercarbono BCP all have meaningfully different data models.
• MRV vendor ecosystem (NatureMetrics, Pivotal, RFCx, Restor) is still early; integrations will churn.

Reasons to ship the schema:

• Most LATAM developers will need biodiversity claim within 24 months for either standalone VBC or stacked carbon premium.
• Project-data model that doesn’t accommodate non-carbon outcomes will be a costly retrofit.
• “Stacking” is the operating-mode of the next decade; software that can’t track multi-stream credits issued from same hectare = obsolete.

Concrete v1 recommendations

1. Project schema includes ecosystem indicators as first-class fields, not metadata: indicator species, baseline biodiversity index, MRV vendor IDs.
2. Credit-issuance object accepts polymorphic credit types — tCO2e, Tebu Unit, ha-year, Wallacea basket-score uplift. Don’t assume one currency.
3. Anti-double-counting registry hooks — each issued credit references the parent project + hectare-cohort; same cohort issuing two credit types must be flagged.
4. MRV data ingestion is vendor-agnostic. Land-cover from Planet/Restor; species from NatureMetrics/RFCx; acoustic from Wildlife Acoustics. Plan for integrations as v2 deliverables.

v2 roadmap (12–18 months)

• Cercarbono BCP integration as first standard — Colombian, LATAM-native, methodology-light, will accept Savimbo-style indicator-species inputs. Lowest-friction path to a real biodiversity claim.
• Verra SD VISta Nature Framework integration second (mandatory if any client wants global-buyer-grade credits).
• Restor + Planet for landscape data; NatureMetrics or Pivotal for premium species data.
• Stacking workflow: UI for issuing both VCS carbon + Cercarbono biodiversity from same project, with auto-checks against double-claiming.
• Buyer-facing claim packet: auto-generated TNFD-aligned + Carbon-Direct/JPM-principle-compliant disclosure pack.

Partnerships to evaluate

• Terrasos — Colombian habitat-bank operator with the largest VBC pipeline in LATAM. Software-light. Natural cross-sell partner for project-developer clients.
• Cercarbono — registry-level integration is high-leverage; few competitors will have it.
• Restor — free-tier biodiversity layer is easy first integration; gets the “nature dashboard” feature shipped cheaply.
• Pivotal — premium MRV; expensive but lends data credibility for buyers.
• Wallacea Trust — peer-review-backed methodology; useful for high-trust pilots, especially with academic-leaning buyers.
• Savimbo — symbolic value (Indigenous-led) plus methodology IP.

Defensive vs offensive positioning

Defensive: if you DON’T add biodiversity within 24 months, a competitor (Pachama-style, NCX-style, or LATAM-local like Climetrek/Emergent’s tooling) will use biodiversity as the wedge to displace you. Carbon-only software is a 2024 product.

Offensive: the project-developer side of the biodiversity market has no incumbent OS. Whoever ships first credible “stacked carbon + biodiversity” workflow becomes the de facto LATAM Verra-Nature-Framework gateway tool. Cercarbono integration is the wedge.

Tagline test: “The OS for nature-positive carbon projects in LATAM” — biodiversity capability is what makes “nature-positive” non-vacuous.

11. Risks + open issues

1. Fungibility skepticism. IAPB explicitly opposes a global standardized unit. If credits never become fungible, the market stays project-by-project, which limits SaaS scale. Counter: CO2e wasn’t fungible across protocols pre-2009 either.

2. Methodology fragmentation. 35 schemes is a lot. If 3–5 emerge as standards (Verra, Plan Vivo, Cercarbono, Wallacea, IAPB-aligned national schemes), software can integrate. If 35 persist, integration burden eats margin.

3. Buyer-side ratings absent. Sylvera + BeZero are still scoring biodiversity as a co-benefit, not as a primary rating. Until buyer-side ratings ship, demand discovery stays slow. Watch BeZero for first dedicated biodiversity-credit rating product (likely 2026–27).

4. UK-BNG supply glut signal. 28k units listed vs 1.5k sold = 19:1 supply overhang. If this dynamic repeats in voluntary markets (i.e., everyone races to issue, demand lags), prices crash and developer software value falls.

5. Greenwashing reputational risk. Voluntary biodiversity credits are even more vulnerable than VCM to “we paid for nothing” critique. The market has no Sylvera-equivalent yet to sort wheat from chaff. A high-profile scandal (à la Verra REDD+ January 2023) could set the market back 3–5 years.

6. MRV cost economics. $130–280k/yr biodiversity MRV per 5,000 ha project is hard to absorb on $500k/yr biodiversity revenue — the carbon co-revenue is what makes it work. Standalone biodiversity-only projects need MRV cost cuts to be economic at scale.

7. Permanence + reversal. Biodiversity is more reversible than carbon (a single fire, invasion, or land-use change wipes uplift). Insurance/buffer-pool products for biodiversity don’t yet exist.

8. Indigenous-FPIC litigation risk. Savimbo/Cercarbono Indigenous-led model is the legitimacy-leader, but most non-Indigenous-led LATAM projects sit in murky FPIC territory. A high-profile lawsuit or community-led decertification would be devastating.

9. EU Nature Credits 2027 framework risk. If the EU framework conflicts with Verra/Plan Vivo/IAPB standards, supply chains fragment. If it aligns, markets unify rapidly.

10. Project-developer concentration. Top 15 developers manage 94% of total project area (Bloom Labs). If a software OS targets the long tail, the addressable market is small; if it targets the top 15, it’s a narrow concentrated-account play.

Synthesis (one-paragraph version)

Voluntary biodiversity credits in 2026 look like the voluntary carbon market in 2014: tiny realized volumes ($1–2M cumulative), proliferating standards (35+), strong tailwinds (TNFD, Symbiosis, JPM/Carbon Direct, EU Nature Credits 2027, Verra Nature Framework operational), and unmistakable structural advantage for LATAM (40% of projects, 77% of project area, Cercarbono BCP first-mover, Terrasos + Savimbo + re.green proof points). The standalone VBC market is too small to anchor a software v1, but stacked carbon + biodiversity is already a 20–50% revenue premium on top-quality nature-based carbon and is becoming the buyer default for sophisticated corporates (Apple, Microsoft, Google, Symbiosis members, JPM-advised clients). For a LATAM project-side OS the strategic play is unambiguous: ship a polymorphic credit schema and Restor/Planet biodiversity layer in v1, integrate Cercarbono BCP and Verra SD VISta Nature Framework in v2, partner with Terrasos for habitat-bank workflows, and position as “the OS for nature-positive LATAM projects” rather than as a carbon-only tool — because by 2027–28, carbon-only will be a pejorative.