Carbon Farming: Who are the buyers and how much are they willing to pay?

Details

Supervisors

Van den Broeck, Goedele

Faculty

Faculté des bioingénieurs

Degree label

Master [120] : bioingénieur en sciences agronomiques, à finalité spécialisée

Abstract

enThe European Union actively promotes carbon farming to enhance soil carbon sequestration and catalyze the transition toward sustainable agri-food systems. However, despite institutional efforts to establish robust certification standards, the market adoption of these credits remains marginal due to pervasive measurement uncertainties and reversal risks. While private corporations represent vital funding pipelines, their procurement preferences for carbon farming credits remain structurally understudied. To resolve this empirical vacuum , this thesis deploys a Discrete Choice Experiment to model corporate preferences and willingness to pay for carbon farming assets among European firms. The choice architecture evaluates how corporate decision-makers navigate and trade off four core credit attributes: purchase price, quantification uncertainty, storage permanence, and certified eco-social co-benefits. Utilizing Mixed Logit models, we capture unobserved preference heterogeneity and isolate distinct corporate demand segments, with a specific focus on agri-food actors. Ultimately, these results provide evidence-based guidance to inform the European Commission on structuring upcoming certification protocols and defining acceptable credit use cases under the Carbon Removal Certification Framework.