News

Woodland creation through natural regeneration offers big rewards. It preserves soil carbon stocks, promotes greater biodiversity and limits the use of plastic tree tubes. But it also poses challenges, especially from a carbon accounting perspective, that have limited its use in the past.

One organisation we have partnered with extensively is the Borders Forest Trust, a fantastic charity with a vision to restore ‘the wild heart’ of southern Scotland. Founded in 1996, the BFT are best known for their pioneering rewilding of Carrifran valley, a process they started 20 years ago.

As summer draws to a close and we head into the autumn months many of our native trees and shrubs become festooned in berries. None more so than the humble rowan (Sorbus aucuparia), colloquially known in parts of the country as the ‘mountain ash’.

The global pandemic caused by COVID-19 is reshaping our world in profound ways. It has exposed the fragility of our economic modus operandi, and the highly globalised supply chains that underpin it. But while a recession looks likely in many parts of the world, the other ramifications of this virus remain far from certain.

In recent weeks there has been some welcome scrutiny of the tree planting agenda. Misguided plans to afforest a wildflower meadow in Cumbria, combined with allegations that commercial forests do not store carbon and fears that carbon offsetting is a ‘wild west’ have led some pundits to question whether woodland creation is a worthwhile enterprise at all, let alone the panacea some politicians are proclaiming.

This week marks the start of the first auction of the Woodland Carbon Guarantee (WCaG), a government initiative designed to incentivise tree planting across England. Applications were set to close at the end of last week, but the deadline has been pushed back and applicants now have until January 31st to register and apply, and potentially secure a contract for selling carbon credits from woodland creation.

Our friends over at Natural Capital Partners have done a nice job summarising the webinar they hosted last month on how business around Europe are supporting woodland creation (and why it's a good thing). Forest Carbon's Steve Prior was one of the panelists. If you didn't catch the webinar you can find the summary over on the Natural Capital Partners blog.

We had a fantastic week at the Chelsea Flower Show - met hundreds of people with loads of questions about what we do. We found great interest in our new small business and household Carbon Clubs, which we set up recently to enable small businesses, and households to mitigate their carbon footprints through properly certified woodland creation in the UK - in the same way that our bigger partners have been able to do these past 14 years.

Both Clubs are designed to make the process as straighforwa...

Forest Carbon is partnering wth the Resources and Waste Management Expo to plant an area of woodland in recognition of all exhibitors at this week's event at the NEC. The vent is the UK's largest waste management and recycling event, and it's great to be helping mitigate its footprint. If you're going to be there why not drop by to see us - we're on Stand S133.

Forest Carbon's Steve Prior will be a panelist on a forthcoming webinar, alongside sustainability specialists from Microsoft and Thomas Cook, to talk about how businesses have taken the lead in helping European governments achieve their climate change and woodland creation aspirations. The webinar, run by Natural Capital Partners, is on 17th September, 4.00pm UK time, and there are more details here.

Yes, really. The Natural Selection Brewing Company launched its limited edition beer The Altruist on 27th June at 6 Degrees North Edinburgh. They've worked with us to mitigate the carbon footprint of the production and distribution of this beer at our project at Talla & Gameshope. They tell their story better than we can, so check it out here on their website.

After several weeks of Extinction Rebellion protests in London, it was encouraging to learn that the Environment Secretary is broadly supportive of the timely Committee on Climate Change ‘Net Zero’ report, which offers a detailed and highly ambitious blueprint for the UK to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050. This includes increasing the UK ‘net forestry sink’ to 22 million tonnes per annum by 2050 by trebling annual rates for woodland creation (another 1.5 billion trees), a massive uplif...

We're chuffed to have been invited to exhibit at this year's Chelsea Flower Show. We'll be in the Discovery Zone - the educational area - alongsides the Horticultural Trade Association, Reading University, the Genetics Society and others. Our stand has been designed to not only tell you how we work, but also explain the multiple benefits of forestry to the UK as a whole. As well as backdrops we're making up four mini-woodlands to show the types of projects we're involved in - native riparian, co...

What now?

Announced in July last year but coming into force for financial years starting after April 1st this year a new set of carbon and energy reporting rules are just around the corner for many businesses. Called the Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting framework (SECR) the scheme will replace the old Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) and Mandatory Carbon Reporting (MCR).

Does this change affect your business?

SECR will apply to around 12,000 companies, which is more than double the numb...

Speaking recently at the Science Museum in London on climate change projections, Michael Gove, the Environment Secretary, was clear that ‘Everything we do at Defra has to be rooted in science.’ He also spoke about woodland as a ‘critical natural asset’ both for helping to mitigate the projected impact on flooding and to sequester carbon.

Days later a BBC News website critique of options for removing carbon from the atmosphere, advised ‘Forests do the job of soaking up carbon dioxide, because the...

This September the first Peatland Code registered restoration project achieved validation. The peatland restoration project, at Dryhope in Scotland, was piloted through the process by Forest Carbon.

George Hepburne Scott at Forest Carbon, who developed the project alongside the Tweed Forum and Scottish Natural Heritage, said “this project highlighted the importance of working collaboratively with a range of organisations to unlock private and public funding to deliver much needed peatland restor...

We were delighted to hear in yesterday's budget that the government plans to support the UK forest carbon market with a £50m woodland carbon fund - designed to give more landowners the confidence that there will be a market for their carbon credits should they plant a woodland that they otherwise would not have planted. The idea had been floated at the Forestry Commission - developers of the the Woodland Carbon Code - some years ago and it is the work of Forest Carbon and the commitment of our p...

The recent Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report rather alarmingly gave us all 12 years to save the world. But the temperature rises being caused by greenhouse gas emissions seem small, and the differences between the various scenarios even smaller. What difference would a 2.0°C rise make, instead of 1.5°C? Not much, surely. The IPCC report tells us why the difference is significant.

Climate change represents an urgent and potentially irreversible threat to human societies a...

NEX Group recently re-affirmed its commitment to UK landscape projects as part of its ongoing carbon mitigation programme, and as a part of this programme became the first business to support a peatland restoration project certified under the new Peatland Code. The project, at Dryhope in the Scottish Borders, entails the restoration and protection of 77 hectares of degraded peatbog. Work was completed in November 2017 and will prevent the release of around 6,500 tonnes CO2 into the atmosphere. A...

Forest Carbon is suporting the largest new productive woodland to be planted in England in the past 25 years. The project, near Wooler in Northumberland, will cover over 800 acres, comprise over 600,000 trees and capture over 90,000tonnes of CO2. The forest will be managed under the continuous cover method, meaning selctive thinning will lead to an all age forest with no clear-felling.

Ireland’s targets for afforestation have received a boost thanks to a new intervention by Microsoft, working with Natural Capital Partners and Forest Carbon. The programme will enable the planting of trees on 137 hectares of land over the next two years. Ireland is one of Europe’s least forested countries and the programme will make an important contribution to the country’s native woodland creation goals – targets which are not currently being met. The newly created forests will also sequester ...

Throughout 2015 Forest Carbon’s Steve Prior was working with academic Andrew Moxey on a project for Defra developing financial models to assess the efficacy of peatland restoration for climate change mitigation. The final report, which also contains chapters by others on the contribution peatland makes to the national natural capital account, and metrics for estimating the carbon savings from restored peat, was published by Defra on 19th January. One of the key objectives of the research was to

Forest Carbon featured on both BBC Look North and BBC North West Tonight on 2nd December after Judy Hobson, BBC North West Environment, visited our project at Fishergound, in the Lake District. The woodland was planted in partnership with the Lake District National Park Authority and landowner Ian Hall, with the carbon funding provided by ICAP. The new native woodland, a few miles inland from Ravenglass in Eskdale, comprises 14,500 trees, planted over 15 hectares, and will capture over 5,000 to

The Grown in Britain initiative has announced the launch of its first partner woodland, a 55ha planting near Cranborne in Dorset. The new woodland project brings together industry and landowners to expand UK woodland cover, capture carbon and produce sustainable timber.

Despite the many benefits UK woodlands bring to the UK – including flood amelioration, carbon dioxide sequestration, improvements in health and well-being, wildlife habitat, and river quality improvement - one thing stands in the way of much more substantial private sector carbon investment in the green infrastructure of our country: the non-offset status of Woodland Carbon Code credits.

In a year with record numbers of entries Forest Carbon was 'Highly Commended' in the carbon management category at the annual Sustainability Leaders Awards held in London on 21st November. Forest Carbon finished behind only the winner, supermarket chain Sainsbury’s, whilst the other category finalists were: Tesco; Carbon Clear with Japan Tobacco International; SC Johnson; and Schneider Electric. The judging panel was headed by Lord Smith, chairman of the Environment Agency.

The Woodland Carbon Code credit registry was launched at an event held at Markit's London offices on Monday 15th July. The registry will enhance transparency and accountability in the trade of credits arising from Woodland Carbon Code (WCC) certified projects. The registry will track the ownership of credits, and record when they have been "used" by companies or individuals as part of their carbon mitigation programmes.

Forest Carbon's Steve Prior interviewed for Climate North East

I spent the last week of January in Berlin, sharing ideas with scientists and policy-makers from the UK, Ireland, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland and elsewhere. It was all about our peatlands: For the three days there were about forty of us all working on the next draft of Germany’s MoorFutures standard as well as the development of a possible UK Peatland Carbon Code. I gained the impression that both the UK and the German codes are well on their way to being credible carbon crediting mechanism

The Woodland Carbon Code, a voluntary UK standard which ensures that ‘carbon forestry’ projects really do deliver the carbon benefits they claim, passed its first anniversary on 27th July 2012, having chalked up an impressive number of achievements.