COLUMN: Carbon credits are a risk but they are also an opportunity
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From the Croft by Russell Smith
The Scottish Parliament’s Cross Party Group on Crofting (organised by the Scottish Crofting Federation) looked at the issues around carbon credits at its March meeting.
The presentations made a complicated subject a bit clearer for those of us who so far haven’t been involved. But there is a lot to it and my take may be an oversimplification. But here are my thoughts anyway.
The woodland scheme has been going for a few years and has an established code of conduct; the peatland scheme is newer. But there is a government funded Peatland Action Programme that some grazings are already participating in.
For both schemes, you need to establish a base line from which improvements can be measured. So surveys will be required.
You can’t sell the carbon that is already sequestered in your soil, peat or woods. Woodlands must be new and not just replacements or mandatory planting. Peatlands must be eroded or dried out and be blanket or raised peat bogs. The worse the land has been treated in the past, then the more additional carbon can be sequestered hence the higher value of the carbon credits.
You must have ownership or rights to the land – this can be a complicated question for common grazings and becomes important when there is a monetary value involved.
Land under crofting tenure and common grazings, in particular, are a significant proportion of UK deep peat. The landlord could resume the land and compensate the crofters or there could be a joint agreement which might need to go to the Land Court for verification. Crofters have rights and responsibilities for common grazings that have to be protected.
You have to get agreement for a scheme before you start work, then do the work, and then demonstrate that carbon has been captured and that this is due to the work you have done.
These are long term commitments (minimum of 30 years) so you have to be clear on succession plans and how the schemes could affect land or tenancy values for a long time ahead.
Remember that agriculture may never be net zero (use of diesel and fertilizer, methane from livestock) so you may need the carbon credits yourself down the line and you don’t want to have to buy credits elsewhere for more than you sold yours for a few years before.
The developing market in carbon sequestration in soils is currently unregulated and so more risky. There are no set prices for credits but the trend is up so those who sold early have lost out. The upward trend movement can be expected to continue - which suggests that you hold off selling all the credits for now.
So, in conclusion, get professional advice, stick with a regulated scheme, make sure you are mindful that you may have need of the carbon credits units yourself later in the future, and remember you can only sell them once.
But the sale of carbon credits could fund a project, such as tree planting for shelter belts or improving the grazing quality of areas of bog that had been cut for peat, that wouldn’t be viable otherwise or it could give you a pension pot without selling your croft or the tenancy. It is both a risk and an opportunity.
Russell Smith is a crofter at Bonar Bridge and a director of the Scottish Crofting Federation.
