Forest Carbon was founded in 2006 with the aim to increase
woodland cover in the UK and provide local nature restoration projects that
businesses could get involved with. Since then, working alongside and
supporting landowners to be certified by the Woodland Carbon Code and the
Peatland Code, they have created a broad range of offsetting projects both in
the UK and internationally, across sectors including farm soil carbon,
agroforestry, hedgerows, salt marsh and other blue carbon (marine)
environments.
We partnered with Forest Carbon in 2024 to contribute
towards projects that are aiming to remove increasing levels of CO2 from our
climate and slow the rate in which climate change is occurring. Working
alongside this to fund projects in Peru, Indonesia and the UK.
Carbon offsetting projects run under two premises - Verified
Carbon Standard (VCS) and Pending Issuance Units (PIU). This is easiest to
explain in terms of trees; if a project is given VCS it means the trees that
have been planted within this project have reached a maturity in which they are
actively removing carbon from the environment. At this standard, project
managers are able to see if certain trees have been affected by weather or poor
growth conditions and will therefore not remove their expected levels of CO2,
so they are able to give much more accurate units of CO2 removal. If a project
is given PIU status, it means that the trees have yet to reach this level of
maturity and units of CO2 removal for the project are based on expected amounts
that have been set based upon number of trees planted and size of project. PIUs
have yet to actively remove carbon from the environment and therefore if you
choose to invest in a PIU project, the CO2 you are offsetting may not be
removed from the environment until 20 years later.
Projects are costed in 'units' - 1 unit = 1 tonne of C02. Generally international projects are somewhere between £15-20 per unit, whereas UK projects tend to be a little more, at around £20-25 per unit.
The projects we contribute to:
The choices for our projects took VCS and PIUs into account as we want our offsetting options to be removing carbon from the environment right now, rather than a promise further down the line. So we are funding two VCS projects in Peru and Indonesia which will cover our forecasted carbon emissions for the coming year. We will then top this up with contributions towards Lowther Estate in the UK, if our emissions exceed our predicted forecast.
Just a stones throw from our UK office, the Lowther estate is creating new, predominantly coniferous mixed woodland across 76 hectares of land. On this land they have planted approximately 122,383 trees with the aim of capturing 33,300,000kg of CO2.
The species of trees planted here are all native to the area and include: Sitka Spruce, Douglas Fir, Scots Pine, Oak, Birch, Rowan, Lime, Hazel, Hawthorn, Apple, Aspen, Alder and Cherry.
As well as creating a woodland corridor between current pasture woodlands, the design of these new woodlands delivers flood mitigation to the local catchment.
The area in which this project takes place is a popular area for growing Acacia trees. Unfortunately the forest clearance, drainage and burning of underlying peat that takes place to grow these trees releases the carbon and methane stored by the area.
This project provides funding to help residents make a living by more sustainable means such as honey, coconut, fire prevention, eco tourism, canal management and sustainable fisheries; restoring over 140,000 hectares of peatland ecosystems.
As well as reducing the emissions produced in this area the project also provides decent work and economic growth to local people, clean water and sanitation and financial empowerment for women, increasing their social equality.
This project focusses on protecting rainforest from
deforestation on community land, through empowering indigenous-led sustainable
development of the forest.
Located in Eastern Peru, on the edge of the Amazon
rainforest, it covers 119, 837 hectares of rainforest and has reduced emissions by 2.7 million tonnes.
The seven indigenous communities that span the area in which
the project has been created are responsible for managing the land. This means
it not only is addressing the biodiversity and conservational issues the area
is facing, but also supports the development of socially inclusive
business.
