Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Ecosystem Services journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecoser The intention of companies to invest in biodiversity and ecosystem services credits through an online-marketplace Marlen S. Krause a, ⁎ , Bettina Matzdorf a,b a Working Group Governance of Ecosystem Services, Research Area Land Use and Governance, Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), Eberswalder Str. 84, 15374 Müncheberg, Germany b Institute of Environmental Planning, Leibniz University of Hanover, Herrenhäuser Str. 2, 30419 Hanover, Germany ARTICLEINFO Keywords: Payments for ecosystem services Nature conservation instruments Governance Voluntary investment Business Theory of Planned Behaviour ABSTRACT We investigated the intention of companies to voluntarily pay for the protection of biodiversity and ecosystem services (BES), specifically by purchasing BES credits through an online-marketplace. The aim of our paper was to analyse influencing factors on companies’ intentions to buy BES credits through an online-marketplace as well as to gain insights into their investment preferences. We did an explorative, qualitative study by conducting interviews with 26 companies in Germany, followed by a structured content analysis based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour. Our results showed that some companies perceived an online-marketplace for BES credits to increase transparency, credibility, communication, as well as the ease to be engaged for nature conservation. Hindering factors to buy BES credits were especially the fear of greenwashing accusations and the lack of business case drivers. Most interviewees did not report stakeholder pressures for nature conservation; instead the intrinsic motivation of managers was of high importance. Managers were interested in diverse BES credits with important regional preferences. Based on our results, we discussed the potential corporate target group. In conclusion, our paper showed that an online-marketplace for BES credits might stimulate business investments in nature conservation. 1. Introduction Companies have an enormous potential to fight the loss of biodi- versity and ecosystem degradation. Even though some pro-biodiversity business models have been developed (Lambooy and Levashova, 2011) and examples of company engagement in sustainable landscape gov- ernance exist (Opdam and Steingröver, 2018), the challenge is that biodiversity and ecosystem services (ES) are typically common or public goods. Due to that many for-profit enterprises struggle to take respon- sibility, account for their interdependency with nature, as well as mi- tigate and pay for externalities (van den Burg and Bogaardt, 2014). Traditionally, mostly public funds are used for nature conservation but the available amounts are by far insufficient (Parker et al., 2012; OECD, 2019). Consequently, high-level politics and environmental organisa- tions call on the financial support of businesses to achieve conservation goals, e.g., Robinson (2012); CBD (2016); OECD (2019). The anthro- pocentric, utilitarian concept of ES hopes to bridge the gap between ecology and economy in order to, among others, increase private sector funding for nature conservation (Credit Suisse et al., 2014; Fisher and Brown, 2015). Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) schemes as economic in- centive mechanisms to pay for ES have increasingly been seen as an opportunity for new financial conservation sources. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimates that there are about 300 PES schemes worldwide, including public- and privately-financed ones, but a detailed overview of these PES schemes and their funding sources is currently not yet available (OECD, 2019).It appears though that privately-financed PES schemes are rare, especially in Europe, North America and Asia (Schomers and Matzdorf, 2013; Ezzine-de-Blas et al., 2016; Thompson, 2018; Wunder et al., 2018). Potentially due to this lack of privately-financed PES schemes in practice, only little research has been done to investigate the interests of companies in voluntary PES schemes. Thompson (2018) analysed within a Southeast Asian context whether various institutional chal- lenges might prevent companies from participating in PES schemes. He found, among others, that companies were often content with philan- trophic payments for nature conservation instead of expecting a return of investment. Similarly, also Koellner et al. (2010) and Mulatu et al. (2015) reported that non-financial motives were stated as main reasons for potential company investments in ES. One of the reasons for this https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoser.2019.101026 Received 28 September 2018; Received in revised form 9 September 2019; Accepted 23 September 2019 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: marlen.krause@zalf.de (M.S. Krause). Ecosystem Services 40 (2019) 101026 Available online 03 November 2019 2212-0416/ © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. T