Voluntary Biodiversity Market Database: Version 2

Presenting the most powerful VBM research and analysis tool (& the first step to a nature market intelligence product) 📊

Hi friends 👋

Last year, I published a database of 450+ voluntary biodiversity market organizations. Many folks told me that it became the go-to place to understand who does what in the market. I too found myself using the database all the time.

Over the past year, VBM has matured a little. Way more organizations have entered the space. We’re seeing more transactions with some major credit schemes inching closer to credit issuance. It deserves a market intelligence layer.

We at Bloom Labs are in the perfect position to build that layer for nature markets, starting with the voluntary side.

That’s why I’m stoked to present version 2 of the database, with 1,000+ organizations in it. It’s not a project anymore. It’s a product.

The ethos of Bloom Labs has always been give-first. That’s why this database is free. All you need to do is subscribe to our newsletter. You'll then get the Airtable link in the welcome email. For the existing subscribers, you’ll find the link in the original newsletter in your inbox.

We are also looking to build premium features for the power users. See more below.

If you don’t see your or someone else’s organization, just fill in this form.

This is a part 1 of a multi part series. Here, I’ll walk you through the database design. Later, I’ll start sharing some data analysis.

Disclaimers

I’ll skip the majority of disclaimers since I shared them last year. Instead, I’ll focus on these:

Many crucial stakeholders are structurally invisible

Once again, most of the essential groups such as Indigenous Peoples, local communities or smallholders are left invisible by the database format. We tried adding as many organizations representing them as we could. They rarely operate under a logo or have the opportunity to engage with the market though. This is a reminder that they serve as the (often voiceless) backbone of any industry related to natural resource stewardship and must be prioritized.

The database is Western-centric

We are inevitably biased towards Western sources of market developments. As much as we tried, I’m convinced that we left out many relevant market players from countries like Japan or India. If you know where we could find more of them, please let us know.

Database design

Scope

We’ve included the organizations according to three criteria:

1. Organization operates in the VBM

   Or, more specifically, it does one or more of the following:

   • Participates in credit creation (i.e. develops credit schemes or projects).

   • Shapes the market by public opinions, research and reports (e.g. industry forums, conservation NGOs or academics).

   • Funds the market, either by investing in projects, companies or purchasing credits.

   • Provides services to the market (e.g. biodiversity monitoring, demand facilitation, nature accounting, consulting or media coverage).

2. Organization is actively exploring VBM

   According to us, “exploring” can be defined by:

   • Participation in industry forums such as Biodiversity Credit Alliance (BCA) or The International Advisory Panel on Biodiversity Credits (IAPB), events, reports and social media.

   • Engaging with Bloom Labs or me. If you reach out, invite me to connect or follow the work of Bloom Labs in any way, I’ve assumed that you are exploring the market.

3. Organization operates very close to VBM

   Many, if not most, nature-based carbon players are actively exploring the biodiversity market. We’ve selected the most obvious organizations. Some other international organizations (e.g. UN Biodiversity) are too important not to be included either.

Group-Area-Category

The database has been built on the Group-Area-Category structure, with Group being the highest and Category the lowest level.

You can find the full structure and definitions of all Groups, Areas and Categories here.

The definitions above are quite self-explanatory. Here’s the only other thing you should know: the order of tags for Group-Area-Category is not random. We’ve listed them in the order of importance. For example, South Pole is marked as both a Supplier (as a Project Developer) and an Enabler (as an Advisory). However, the Supplier comes first since it’s the company’s primary activity and is the most relevant to VBM.

Other data fields

Description

Every description is custom-made. No fluff, all content. It should help you quickly understand what the organization actually does and, most importantly, how it relates to the market.

Tags

There are three types of tags.

“Focus” is for activity characteristics that usually define the organization (e.g. “agriculture”, “carbon” or “Biodiversity Net Gain”). “Tech” is for technologies that the organization uses. And “Social” is for the most relevant social themes behind each organization. We decided to be especially picky with “Tech” and “Social” tags to maximize signal and minimize noise. For example, many organizations use software and even more are focused on positive impact on communities. But unless the organization is defined by these concepts, it wasn’t tagged.

Connections

That’s where the most relevant industry connections of each organization are. Usually consists of industry alliances that the organization is part of and its most important strategic partners.

Commercial Partners

Most relevant commercial groups for the organization (e.g. clients, partners, investors, etc.). That’s where you can see who the organization “does business with”. They are categorized according to the Area data field I mentioned earlier.

Organization URLs

The website and LinkedIn URLs for an easy way to get more information.

Company-specific information

The founding date, number of employees and LinkedIn follower count to give a quick idea of how new and large the organization is.

What is so special about this database?

A couple of things:

Scope

Every organization has been selected and categorized in the context of VBM. Each one has a role to play. Even if it’s an NGO that publishes conservation-related reports, it primarily acts as a Project Developer if it’s interested in reshaping some of their on-the-ground initiatives into biodiversity credit projects.

And every single organization has been validated by a human. You can trust that it’s not just a list of similar-sounding organizations.

Usability

It is built for surgical use. You can filter through 17 different data fields to find virtually any organization that meets your requirements.

Extensiveness

It is the most comprehensive list of organizations in this market.

Uniqueness

Many data points inside are unique and built by humans (hello 👋). As good as AI is becoming, it’s simply impossible to automatically scrape a lot of this data online. Or rather, it is but fixing inaccuracies would probably take just as long as doing it yourself. Trust us, we tried :) Quick and clear descriptions together with industry Connections field alone can be a powerful research tool.

The database is designed for daily use. Whether you’re looking to just keep up with the market in hours instead of days/weeks or do deeper research for strategic decisions or investments, this is the product for you.

Advice on how to use it

This list is most valuable when you use it, not just look at it.

Filtering is the most valuable feature there is. With it, you can slice and dice the database however you like. Do you want to find all the MRV providers that 1. specialize in aggregating multi-modal biodiversity data 2. support acoustics and 3. are based in Germany? They’re a couple of clicks away (for the curious ones, it’s biometrio.earth, fold ecosystemics and Hula Earth 🙂).

If you combine it with other features (especially grouping, sorting, hiding/showing columns and keyword search), you’ll see the utility of the database compound.

A more powerful version is possible. Do you want it?

Coming from startups, I kept hearing “validate your product first”, “build in public”, “focus on distribution before product”. And still, here I am, realizing that I haven’t done enough of that myself. Although my focus at Bloom Labs has always been on providing deep, unique and accessible market intelligence, I didn’t do enough product discovery. I didn’t speak with enough people who use my work and didn’t collect enough feedback to build something companies would be willing to pay for. That is about to change.

A more powerful version of the database is possible.

Here are just a couple of features we are working on or are considering:

• Proprietary Bloom Labs scores that assess the organization’s market influence and momentum.

• Regular database updates. Monthly, weekly or daily instead of annually (at best).

• Ability to export and visualize data.

• More comprehensive linking of Connections, providing a near-complete list of the most important partners for each organization.

• Intelligence sources that link you to specific resources to learn more about each organization.

• More extensive classification. Think ecosystem types & subtypes (e.g. terrestrial, coastal, freshwater, etc.), project types (e.g. IFM, ARR, REDD+, etc.), credit standards each project developer uses (e.g. Verra, Plan Vivo, etc.) and more.

• And of course, a custom data platform.

The question is, would it be valuable enough that you would pay for it? And if so, how much?

👉 That’s why I have a single ask: if this database is valuable to you and you are interested in an even more powerful VBM market intelligence product, fill in this 3-minute product discovery survey. 👈

As I said, we are building the market intelligence layer for nature markets. Here’s what we currently have in the voluntary space:

• Biodiversity Credit Schemes: the most extensive list of analyzed VBM credit schemes.

• Biodiversity Credit Metrics: the most extensive list of indicators & metrics behind these schemes.

• Voluntary Biodiversity Credit Transactions: a list of virtually all public VBM transactions.

These resources have proven useful already. But they can work together, be real-time and become much more valuable. With your help, they can become the way to check the market pulse. They can also scale to other nature markets.

Parting thoughts

This is a compilation of 2 years of work. It’s also the first resource built with more scale in mind. Big thanks to Martin for pushing me in this direction. You’ve been a great sparring partner (& an even better designer) :).

Have fun!