Crowdfunding of Climate Measures in Agriculture: Investigation of Success Factors in a Real-Life Setting

PurposePromising climate mitigation practices are costly for farmers within the current regulatory, market and business frameworks. There is a need for innovative solutions that ensure that farmers are paid and supported for their efforts to reduce GHG emissions. Crowdfunding represents a novel approach with high potential. This article tests previously identified success factors for crowdfunding in a study of two sustainable crowdfunding campaigns in Norwegian agriculture in a real-life setting.Design/methodology/approachWe designed real-life crowdfunding campaigns with two Norwegian farmers and carried out semi-structured interviews with them and their backers to discuss their experiences with crowdfunding. We also analysed both campaign descriptions.FindingsOne of the crowdfunding campaigns was unsuccessful with no backers, while the other one collected 88 per cent of the targeted amount with 82 backers. The farmer of the successful campaign communicated actively with backers and showed a strong emotional appeal in the campaign description.Originality/valueThis study contributes to testing previously identified success factors for sustainable crowdfunding and crowdfunding of climate measures in agriculture in real-life settings. Furthermore, the study contributes to the under-investigated topic of crowdfunding climate measures in agriculture, which is a potential innovative approach for reducing GHG emissions and increasing uptake of climate mitigation measures.