New Association formed to promote UK nature-based projects 

Five of the UK’s leading developers of nature-based projects – including CarbonStore, part of Tilhill Forestry, have joined forces to form a new coalition.

The UK Nature Projects Association (UKNPA) has been created to promote and accelerate woodland creation and peatland restoration schemes carried out to deliver climate and biodiversity benefits.

A short film has been produced to explain the reasons for creating the Association – and can be viewed here. It encourages other project developers to come on board, investors to deliver finance to grow the market, and policy-makers to lend their support.

The five companies – ADL Nature, Caledonian Climate Partners, CarbonStore, part of Tilhill Forestry, Forest Carbon, and Scottish Woodlands Ltd – launched the new Association at an event at the Caledonian Club in London.

Project developers, policy-makers, investors, and other organisations involved in promoting woodland creation and peatland restoration, attended the event.

Freddie Ingleby, Managing Director of Caledonian Climate Partners, said: “We set up the Association to bring together those with dirt under their fingers, taking action to create new woodlands and restore peatlands across the UK – and give them a collective voice.”

Emma Kerr, Head of Carbon at Scottish Woodlands Ltd, said: “Planting trees and restoring peatlands are vital for a greener future. Both activities make a significant contribution to removing carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere – vital in combating the damaging effects of climate change.”

George Hepburne Scott, Director of Forest Carbon, said: “Woodland creation and peatland restoration provide a whole range of benefits for society – carbon sequestration, enhancing biodiversity, improving water quality, and reducing flood risk..”

In the UKNPA video, Mr Hepburne Scott and Ms Kerr are filmed at Lauder Common, a small woodland creation project in the Scottish Borders expected to soak up around 8000 tonnes of CO₂ in its lifetime. 

In the film, Mr Ingelby says: “If we want to have a positive impact on our country’s nature as a whole, it is essential we get the scale of delivery for woodland creation and peatland restoration accelerating. The key driver for that is getting policy and governance correct, getting the investment community behind it, and the corporate end user group wanting to partake – to make it sustainable over the long term.”

David McCulloch, Head of Carbon Store, Tilhill Forestry says: “Our message to investors is that we need your input. It is your financial power that is going to help this market work, so please work with us to create a really vibrant, thriving market for nature-based credits.”

Interviewed at the launch event, Angus Davidson, Managing Director of ADL Nature, says: ”The launch event is the five companies that have come together, to get the message out there that we are here and we want to be inclusive and want to scale nature recovery.”  

There has been widespread support for the new Association. Pat Snowdon, Head of the Woodland Carbon Code, Scottish Forestry, said: “I welcome the formation of the association. I think it’s a really good step forward in the way the market is starting to mature. There’s a lot of expertise across this group, which they could really bring together for everyone’s benefit. 

Helen Avery, Director of Nature Programmes, Green Finance Institute, said: “There is no better group of organizations to come together who could feed into the design of these markets, help inform policy and regulations and bring the challenges of supply, demand and finance all together.”

Andy Grundy, Head  of Climate and Landscape at Soil Association Certification, said: “We’re really pleased to see the creation of this association. In the early days of an industry like this, you need to put away the competition a little and work together collaboratively to let the sector grow and learn from each other’s experiences.”

Renée Kerkvliet-Hermans, Peatland Code Manager at IUCN UK Peatland Programme, said: “We welcome the formation of the coalition. It really helps us as a standard to get one way of communicating.”

To contact (or join) the coalition, please go to https://www.uknpa.com/ and fill in the simple form. And please follow the Association on LinkedIn here