Buyer-Funded Model Lowers Supplier Costs
Paul Gambill, CEO of Nori, on tokenized projects for social good
The key bottleneck in carbon markets is not buyer demand, it is the cost and hassle of getting new supply approved. Traditional registries like Verra and Gold Standard make money from project registration, issuance, account, and transaction fees, so the developer pays at each step before credits can be sold. That structure favors large, well-connected projects and makes it hard for small suppliers to enter, which is why Nori shifts monetization to the buyer side and keeps supplier costs close to third party verification only.
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In the legacy workflow, a project developer must pick a methodology, hire validators and verifiers, submit to a registry, get credits issued, then often rely on brokers to reach buyers. That is a long chain of paid gatekeepers before any cash reaches the supplier.
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Registry fee schedules make the incentive issue concrete. Gold Standard charges issuance fees and annual registry account fees. Verra charges registration, verification review, and transaction related fees in multiple programs. These fees help run the registry, but they do not directly lower supplier onboarding costs in a supply constrained market.
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Nori is designed more like a payments layer than a registry. Farmers get carbon quantified and verified, Nori sells the removal to buyers, and Nori takes a 15% fee above the tonne price. Patch sits nearby as API infrastructure that connects buyers and suppliers, which shows the broader market moving toward demand side software and away from registry heavy workflows.
The market is heading toward cheaper, faster supplier onboarding and more software driven distribution. As carbon removal demand broadens beyond bespoke enterprise deals, the winners will be the platforms that can turn a slow consulting process into a repeatable transaction flow, while still preserving enough verification rigor for buyers to trust the tonnes they are funding.