Land use, land-use change and forestry, and agriculture routemap

The land use, land-use change and forestry (referred to as ‘land use’ for brevity), and agriculture sectors are a major contributor to UK greenhouse gas emissions. In 2018, emissions from land use were 12.8 MtCO₂e, equating to two per cent of the total, due to playing a significant role in balancing emissions through carbon sequestration and carbon sinks. Agriculture was responsible for 11 per cent of total UK emissions in 2020, and for 69 per cent of the UK’s total nitrous oxide emissions and 28 per cent of total methane emissions. Previous emissions inventories have not included peatland emissions, which increase when peatland is in poor condition, releasing gases from this vital carbon sink.

Without peat degradation figures, emissions from land use are net negative to broadly flat, however the addition of these figures are expected to make land use a net source of emissions. 

Councils can contribute to emissions reductions from land use and agriculture through strategies and policies, increasing the amount of and access to green space, green finance initiatives, connecting with farmers and landowners to communicate about nature and support sustainable and regenerative farming and woodland management, and promoting healthy and sustainable food production and consumption.

The land use, land-use change and forestry, and agriculture routemap suggests interventions that could embed sustainability into council services with a focus on land use and agriculture, complementing existing council projects and actions. It enables reflection on your work in this area and how things could be improved.

This is the beginning of an ongoing piece of work for the LGA. These interventions are a first draft and we will be adding and amending them based on initial feedback. We welcome your thoughts on how we can improve and grow what we have started. Please fill in the feedback form (opens in new tab) to let us know your thoughts.

The routemaps provide a menu of interventions council staff can reflect on and consider applying to their role, team or service area. Some may require collaboration and partnership with colleagues, other service areas, businesses or communities. Others may be within the remit of individuals to explore.

The routemaps are not broken down by service area or council type, as the themes are cross-cutting and affect all councils and service areas. Instead, the routemaps present categories and sub-categories of interventions, based on their potential to drive change and achieve the project goal.

Some interventions councils could consider include:

Community projects

• Providing more local growing opportunities, such as community allotments.
• Requiring all new developments to have community food growing areas.
• Creating edible gardens and other educational projects.
• Considering ‘no mow’ and pollinator projects to protect and enhance biodiversity on the local authority estate.

Resource use

• Adopting bio-based construction methods.
• Applying a bio-based construction toolkit to help to lock away carbon in the built environment.
• Considering opportunities to apply new and existing nature-based solutions in building and retrofit.

Transport 

• Redesigning the transport system to prioritise walking, cycling and public transport.
• Developing high quality green infrastructure across rural and urban areas.
• Integrating green infrastructure to enable people to walk or cycle to school, including establishing green corridors.
• Adopting a neighbourhood approach, looking at how people move about.
• Changing the streetscape from being car dominated to having street trees and child-friendly streets for play and interactions.

Renewables

• Exploring opportunities for mine water heating, for example, in Seaham, County Durham and Sunderland City Council.

Nature-based solutions

• Committing to tree-planting activities.​
• Exploring opportunities to benefit from nature-based solutions, to protect and enhance biodiversity on the local authority estate.
• Investing in peatland restoration to prevent further degradation and emissions.
• Introducing projects to apply ecological and permaculture techniques to sustainably manage large areas of green space, for example, the Burnley ‘Go to the Park’ project.
• Exploring projects to bring community forests together to increase woodland cover, for example, ‘The Northern Forest’.

Green space

• Delivering offsite solutions on council-owned land to work towards environmental net gain.
• Creating green space in urban areas, for example, Hackney’s parks.

Policy and regulation interventions relate to local council policies and strategies.

Land use policy

• Introducing local nature recovery strategies to promote land-use change for multiple benefits in addition to biodiversity.
• Considering the role of nature recovery to tackle the challenge of biodiversity loss.
• Supporting access to nature.
• Understanding the best use of land for net zero, competitive land values as a result of competing demands of food production, energy generation, sequestration and biodiversity.
• Ensuring land use strategy balances conflicting needs and demands for land.
• Reviewing how land use is currently distributed.
• Applying the Soil Carbon Code and Hedgerow Carbon Code to promote nature-based solutions to climate change, alongside woodland and peatland carbon codes.
• Considering biodiversity net gain (BNG) in council-owned land management practice.
• Building annual tree-planting requirements into strategy, for example, the Wirral Tree, Hedgerow and Woodland Strategy.
• Building the protection and recovery of threatened species through habitat maintenance, restoration and creation into strategy, for example, the Kent Biodiversity Strategy.

Food policy

• Embedding sustainable land use into council food policy.
• Having a food action plan and strategy that considers sustainable food issues.
• Creating a food strategy that links to healthy eating, for example, Camden Good Food for Camden strategy.
• Encouraging other public sector organisations to have a ‘farm to fork’ policy.
• Reforming school menus to provide sustainable food, including exploring vegan options and food that does not require refrigeration.
• Introducing a food and nutrition charter mark.

Planning policy

• Implementing a policy to include green spaces in all developments.
• Tightening planning to enable and enforce sustainable development.
• Including planning for BNG in both planning policy and development requirements.

Climate strategy

• Declaring a climate and nature emergency, if this has not already been done.
• Ensuring all departments have climate strategies.
• Including land use considerations in climate action plans.
• Including ‘nature recovery’ as an important factor in tackling climate change.

Waste policy

• Including land use in waste management processes – particularly in the production of goods and processing.
• Minimising food waste by reducing consumption, adopting practices such as freezing fresh food, delivering education about the impacts of food waste, and running behaviour change programmes.

Biodiversity policy

• Using the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006 (NERC) requirements, including protecting and enhancing biodiversity, on council estates to drive action.
• Using the requirements for BNG to make a case for action.
• Connecting ‘nature recovery’ and health policy to promote healthier communities through access to nature.
• Introducing strategies for marine management, including the recovery and protection of marine life and carbon sequestration.

Funding and investment interventions relate to budgets and funding controlled and distributed by councils.

Funding

• Applying for community allotment funding – a number of authorities are eligible.
• Using Trees for Climate funding to plant orchards and cover maintenance costs.
• Funding farmers to plant trees and change land use to account for their need to make money from their land.
• Restructuring local authorities to look at how they could work more sustainably, and freeing up money for these priorities.
• Exploring how delivery of the priorities and actions identified in a local nature recovery strategy (LNRS) will be incentivised through a combination of public and private finance schemes – Environmental Land Management (ELM), Woodland Creation Grants, Carbon Credits, Nature for Climate Peatland Restoration Grants, and so on.
• Working with farmers to understand how they can support the delivery of LNRS opportunities and potential funding opportunities through ELMS and so on, for example, Greater Manchester Natural Capital Investment Plan.
• Finding new ways to fund environmental projects, including sustainable urban drainage (SUDs), tree planting, peatland restoration and habitat creation, for example, Devon Natural Capital Challenge Fund.

Investment

• Developing natural capital investment plans to help address issues and unlock opportunities for land-use change, for example, options being explored in North and East Yorkshire.
• Exploring opportunities for ‘invest to save’ initiatives, including supporting coordinating partnerships such as the Local Nature Partnerships (LNP) and funding opportunities.
• Including 'invest to save' initiatives in financial planning.

Valuation

• Establishing the social, health and economic values of nature restoration and food growing.
• Making a business case for rewilding and food production.
• Promoting the use of natural capital approaches, including natural capital accounts, to understand the value of the natural environment in decision-making processes.

Procurement

• Supporting local food production through contracts for local authority food purchasing.

• Exploring social value in procurement and contracts.

Community engagements

• Working with neighbourhoods and communities to build connection with council activities.
• Coordinating local community involvement.
• Reviewing and improving community engagement, to increase buy-in with nature. 
• Running education programmes to raise public awareness of biodiversity.
• Introducing school food teams.
• Working with community-led charities, to combat the climate emergency, fuel poverty and food insecurity, for example, Greener Kirkaldy. 

Training

• Delivering Carbon Literacy Training to catering and procurement officers. 
• Training influencers to be carbon literate and cascade learning.
• Providing workshops and training on effective engagement with community groups and other local stakeholders (CAT).

Education

• Embedding growing in the curriculum, for example, allotments, orchards, community forests – there is an opportunity to do this from nursery level up.
• Supporting appropriate access to nature and understanding of the natural world within schools.
• Working with educators to include nutrition as part of the curriculum.
• Including government advice on healthy eating in food technology lessons. 
• Building practical skills, including cooking, gardening and waste prevention.
• Making the link between healthier diets and land use in schools and more widely.
• Changing mindsets through formal and informal education and engagement.
• Introducing monthly eco-school forums.

Research

• Being part of research projects, for example, University of York Fix our Food initiative exploring transition food systems.

Sharing practice

• Communicating practice to enable others to learn from experiences.
• Applying national best practice guidance, with data to build the business case for changes.
• Learning from previous projects and implementing research findings, for example, NHS Healthy New Town Programme.
• Promoting innovative ideas for small-scale local farming, for example, The Mushroom Queen, North Kensington.
• Setting up working groups, for example, Grow Yorkshire Hemp Supply Chain Working Group.
• Accessing webinars to learn from other practitioners, for example, the LGA.

External collaboration

• Working with businesses to increase the involvement of the private sector.
• Encouraging other public sector organisations to have a ‘farm to fork’ policy.
• Using deliberative processes with direct communication between councils and farmers to understand how farmers feel.
• Using the benefits of access to nature in delivery of public services, including social care, community development, health and recreation.
• Bringing farmers and land managers into discussions.
• Carrying out audits at the local farm level, to work at a scale that feels manageable. 
• Working in partnership with other organisations to promote beneficial land management for biodiversity, including LNPs.
• Working with adjoining local authorities to deliver cross-boundary opportunities for nature recovery.
• Collaborating on community projects that focus on rewilding and promoting pollinators.
• Bringing people across the county or region together to collaboratively map stakeholders and design an engagement strategy.
• Establishing a stakeholder engagement structure with assigned responsibilities, including regular communication with stakeholders.

Internal collaboration

• Embedding inter-departmental collaboration, focusing on promoting sustainable land use.
• Implementing strategies for council services to work together.
• Reviewing climate change strategies and action plans to help promote collaboration and discussion between council departments, external partners and stakeholders.
• Building better links between departments to enable different department initiatives to work together.
• Promoting better integration between different levels of government and other public bodies.
• Engaging catering and procurement officers with action on land use.
• Working with procurement teams to serve healthy locally grown produce in schools, hospitals and council canteens.
• Using the benefits of access to biodiversity in the delivery of services to the public, such as social care, community development, health and recreation.

Networks

• Setting up a sustainable food system working group.
• Implementing city-wide food partnerships.
• Connecting industries together, from farmers to builders.
• Bringing together landowners, farmers, communities and businesses to prioritise nature and biodiversity recovery, and outdoor green space for people, through LNP and relevant LNRS steering groups, for example, Natural England Nature Recovery Network Strategies.

Knowledge sharing 

• Having more open discussions about the variety of options available.
• Benefitting from advice through schemes such as the Peak District National Park’s Farm Advisor Team on trees and woodland, meadows, countryside stewardship and moorland management.

Neighbourhood design

• Redesigning transport systems to prioritise walking, cycling and public transport.
• Adopting a neighbourhood approach, looking at how people move about.
• Integrating green infrastructure to enable people to walk or cycle to school.
• Changing the streetscape from being car dominated to having street trees and child-friendly streets for play and interactions.

Circular economy

• Applying circular economy principles to promote good practice and mindset shifts, for example, work in North Yorkshire driven by the Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), including Circular Malton.

Co-benefits

• Introducing LNRS to promote land-use change for multiple benefits, in addition to biodiversity.
• Applying learning from the Healthy New Towns programme carried out by the NHS, to drive sustainability work with health co-benefits.
• Considering using the benefits of access to nature in the delivery of public services, including social care, community development, health and recreation.

Redesigning systems

• Being part of research projects, for example, University of York Fix our Food initiative exploring transition food systems.
• Finding new ways to fund environmental projects, including sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS), tree planting, peatland restoration and habitat creation, for example, Devon Natural Capital Challenge Fund.

Behaviour change

• Changing mindsets through formal and informal education and engagement.
• Using incentives to promote positive actions and behaviour change – both in the work of councils and in citizens’ personal lives.
• Applying circular economy principles to promote mindset shifts, for example, work in North Yorkshire driven by the Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), including Circular Malton.

Leadership

• Focusing on getting sustainability higher up the priority list, for example, resolving the conflict between biodiversity and development.
• Encouraging council members to prioritise climate change.

Beliefs and values

• Countering the perception that healthier choices and plant-based foods are more expensive or less convenient.
• Developing local pride in neighbourhoods.

Inclusivity

• Reducing socio-economic barriers to positive change for individuals.

Business norms

• Recognising the true value of the natural environment in decision making, through natural capital accounts.

Burnley Borough Council

Burnley ‘Go to the Park’

Burnley ‘Go to the Park’ introduced natural maintenance techniques and worked with volunteers to rethink how the council’s parks were maintained. Permaculture approaches – introducing wildflower meadows, using herbaceous perennials instead of bedding plants, and producing commercial crops on park perimeters – have led to cost savings that have enabled continued investment in things the public values, such as removing litter and maintaining play areas, despite pressure on council budgets. Approaches such as this can provide co-benefits including improved health and wellbeing for the community, which could also be a source of funding, through collaboration with healthcare commissioners.

Devon County Council

The Apricot Centre

Farming and food systems rely on healthy soils and ecosystems. They have the potential to promote biodiversity and sustainable carbon management. Despite this, a skills deficit is preventing a transition to regenerative farming methods. Devon County Council supported the Apricot Centre to create and deliver a free regenerative land systems training programme to close the local skills gap. This aimed to enable natural capital to be increased through the restoration of hedgerows and encouraging biodiversity, as well as regenerating soils to lock away carbon.

Unemployed people, young people and career changers accessing the training completed land-based learning on farms or with land-based businesses. The skills developed included improving water management systems, promoting biodiversity, sequestering carbon, and developing the natural assets of farms. Applying the methods learned through the training is estimated to enable farms to reduce carbon emissions by 430 tonnes per year. Trainees were also equipped with the knowledge to use carbon toolkits and create implementation plans. This will enable data collection and evaluation to be carried out.