Offset options to achieve net zero by 2030

In 2021, 2022 and 2023 we attempted to purchase either Woodland or Peatland Carbon Units or Pending Issuance Units (PIUs) on the open market via a Request for Quotation (RfQ) advertised on the South West Councils procurement portal. A Carbon Unit is 1 tCO₂e that has already been stored and verified. PIUs are essentially the promise of Carbon Units to come once the trees have grown or the peatland has matured.

The RfQ offered £44,000 in return for as many units as brokers could provide from their relationships with woodland and peatland owners. Eight carbon brokers viewed the RfQ but we received no bids. 

We spoke informally to local experts on carbon markets and staff in the charitable sector at the North Devon Biosphere Reserve, the Devon Wildlife Trust and the Woodland Trust, who advised us that:

1. Very few projects were carried out and registered long enough ago to be yielding Carbon Units now i.e. around 15 years ago, as trees sequester significant amounts of carbon between Year 15 and Year 65 of planting. Peatland projects have a shorter lead-in time but are very expensive to deliver.

2. Many landowners are retaining units to help them meet their own net zero targets.

3. The commercial market is speculating about carbon prices rocketing in the next few years and therefore they don’t want to sell Carbon Units or PIUs now. The price we were expecting the commercial market to offer was between £15 and £40 (based on conversations with local experts referenced above).

We instead purchased PIUs from The Woodland Trust and the North Devon Biosphere Foundation’s Natural Capital Marketplace. The Woodland Trust only sell carbon to organisations, which meet their ethical criteria – principally not to be involved in fossil fuel extraction with a carbon account and carbon reduction target. As a charitable organisation, WT sells PIUs to raise funds to further their purpose of planting more trees. 

In 21/22, the North Devon Biosphere Foundation’s Natural Capital Marketplace had been set up and, with the ambition to assist with the creation of new habitat closer to home, we bought PIUs based on expected carbon sequestration of their planned projects in Devon. 

As all these projects are newly planted woodland, the units, the bulk of the units will mature between 2030 and 2050.

We have also trialled a more direct approach by buying 28 acres (11 hectares) of improved grassland in Devon in 2021-22. It is planned to apply for Woodland Creation Grant and plant trees in the 2024-25 planting season to create a broad-leaved woodland called Brook Wood. It lies adjacent to a Forestry Commission wood, which is possibly a Plantation on Ancient Woodland Site (PAWS) increasing the benefit of planting by expanding existing habitat and providing space for natural colonisation.

Land for sale is scarce and expensive and it is not easy to find land under £10k an acre. We were lucky to buy this land at about £7.5k an acre and the total costs of the project are estimated to be about £217,000 net of the Plymouth and South Devon Community Forest grant. From the Woodland Carbon Code calculator it is estimated that the woodland will generate about 50 Carbon Units at year 10 at a cost of about £4,000 per Unit. Obviously, the cost per Unit comes down as the trees sequester more – it is about £65 at year 100. 

This is comparatively expensive and most of the units will mature after 2050 when DCC should have less need of carbon credits. Although the project also has biodiversity and public access benefits, it has taken considerable staff time to implement. DCC has responsibility for project management, liability and risk for the management of the land and trees with limited staff capacity. It has therefore been decided to not invest in further projects.

During 2024, we continued to look for PIUs and found that there are now more woodland projects registered for the Woodland Carbon Code. However, upon investigation, the landowners/project developers of projects in Devon were reluctant to sell now or only had credits for after 2050 or wanted to sell all the credits up to the end of the project i.e. usually 100 years. We did not feel that we could commit DCC to buying a product that far ahead. Advice from market experts was again that credit owners are holding on in the expectation of price increases towards 2030. 

However, there are new schemes coming forward, which revolve around soils and reduced emissions from land-use changes. The attraction of these projects is that they deliver carbon credits quickly, although there are concerns around permanence and rigorous testing is important to demonstrate carbon sequestration. We therefore went out to the market again in 2024 via a Request for Quotation (RfQ) advertised on the South West Councils procurement portal. In our specification we asked for units or PIUs maturing in 2030 and that were certified to a standard with third party verification. 

We received three bids and awarded the contract to Nature Broking as the lowest priced bid, which met the specification. The projects are in southern England and based on regenerative farming and are certified to the UK Code of Carbon Conduct (UKCCC). One of the other bidders was Wilder Carbon – this code has been developed by Kent Wildlife Trust and provides verified credits to a very high standard based on carbon sequestration/avoidance when transforming land for nature. We will look to work with both organisations to support projects in Devon.