Climate Foresight 2025

To understand stakeholder dynamics, including power imbalances and incentives, the Stakeholder Analysis Matrix by Cairns and Wright (2018) can be used (see Figure 8). By analyzing these stakeholder dynamics, we can better understand who has the most to gain - or the most to lose - in certain outcomes (Cains and Wright 2018). In VCMs, interactions between stakeholders shape the system’s effectiveness. Within the environment established by context setters, players hol d i nterest and power. Although subjects such as local communities lack immediate power, the matrix is helpful for tracking changes over time; a bystander or subject can transform into a player or context setter under the right conditions.This has been demonstrated by discourse exploring indigenous-led carbon credit projects (see Evans 2023). Indigenous perspectives are tailored to the biodiversity characteristics of the landthey inhabit and sequester carbon on (L ee 2 022; Evans 2023). Indigenous worldviews respect the land as a provider; an antithesis to the extractive mentality of large financiers and carbon offset providers actively participating in VCMs. Despite being “low power”, they are certainly “high interest”, making them “subjects” as defined by Cains and Wright (2018). Climate Foresight: Transforming the Voluntary Carbon Markets, by Roger Spitz & James Balzer 19 © Disruptive Futures Institute, March 2025