The Cause of Climate Change
Increasingly I’m sure the cause of climate change is our collective failure to actually value the atmosphere, and by extension, the natural world. By failing to recognise its incredible value we have all continued to consume carbon-intensive goods and services without the checks and balances that would be afforded by taking into account the cost of that carbon. What is free we take, and continue to take to the extreme without thought of the consequences.
The emergence of carbon credits serves two incredibly important purposes; the first is that they impose a definitive value for each unit, carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e) removed from the atmosphere, simultaneously recognising the cost of emitting or polluting the atmosphere. And where removal credits are concerned, they also ensure that a tCO2e is actually removed from the atmosphere directly helping in the battle to push back against the damage we’ve all done.
Pollution is Good for Economic Growth
The impact of failing to appropriately price the environment is perhaps best demonstrated by considering how we account for environmental disasters. Consider the damage inflicted on our rivers by the water companies actively pumping sewage into our river systems. In our current measure of GDP, there is no recognition of the loss of fish, invertebrates, and other wildlife, nor for the loss of amenity opportunities, or the costs of increased rates of illness in those living close by these environments. By contrast, the cost of the cleanup (equipment, salaries, and legal bills that follow) all appear as productive expenditure in GDP and present as economic growth! Let that sink in for a second…polluting the environment and destroying the natural world is good for economic growth – how broken can a system be?!
Despite the importance of correctly pricing for our carbon impacts, this idea has faced public criticism with some arguing that carbon credits allow people to wilfully pollute more. Increasingly, however, this has proven not to be the case, with the biggest purchasers of carbon credits also demonstrating the biggest reductions in their carbon footprints. For anyone who has sat in a board room, businesses have done and always will do, everything they can to minimise their costs, and the easiest way to do this when carbon is properly priced is to reduce their emissions and thereby seek to reduce the costs of the carbon credits they need to acquire. And the higher, and more realistic the price for the impact of carbon emissions, the faster this transition occurs.
Transformative Carbon Credits
Carbon markets are developing rapidly but still are only a fraction of the reach and scale we need to see a meaningful impact on climate change and biodiversity collapse. To help these markets scale, and create an effective global carbon price, we need to provide a giant leap in the quality of products available. In the same way that the Tesla Model S transformed our perception of what’s possible from an electric vehicle, and the way the iPhone introduced the world to the possibilities of a smartphone, we need a new suite of natural capital products and services that completely change our perception and relationship with paid ecosystem services.
By introducing premium carbon credits that address the most prominent challenges and criticisms facing existing carbon credits, we can build the integrity, confidence, and desirability of these products and investments, helping to mobilise the incredible levels of investment desperately wanting to help make a positive impact on the natural world.
Premium Carbon Credits
1 – UK-based credits generated on land we own
All our natural capital products and services, including our carbon credits, are developed on land owned and managed by Oxygen Conservation. This ensures the permanence of projects and provides buyers with absolute confidence in the underlying security of the land associated with their carbon-based investments.
2 – Independently verified with advanced digital monitoring, reporting, & verification
All of our carbon credits are validated and verified by independent experts following best practice standards. Every aspect of our work, from baseline environment surveys, through to project design, delivery, registration, and verification is delivered in partnership with independent experts, building trust that every carbon credit removes one tonne of carbon from the atmosphere or prevents it from being released through the restoration of peatland. This external validation process is supplemented by our own extensive monitoring, reporting, and verification process which utilises advanced drone and lidar-based technology to measure every cm of the land we own. This allows us to know everything that happens across our portfolio thanks to our incredible team of ecologists, economists, and data scientists with expertise in data acquisition, analysis, and assessment.
3 – Credit insurance available for buyers
We are working with market leaders in the development of carbon-based insurance to make our credits an insurable investment. This means that buyers of our credits can be confident in the delivery of any carbon they buy, even in the face of increasing risk of natural disasters, political change, and extreme weather events.
4 – Regular impact reports that measure contributions to the UN SDGs
Every one of our projects is part of a large-scale landscape restoration project which delivers environmental and social impact first, and carbon credits as a result of our work to protect and improve the natural world for people and wildlife. For each of our projects, we set targets towards making a meaningful contribution towards nine of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, from providing clean water to generating renewable energy and producing organic food. Each year we produce an impact report quantifying and measuring our progress towards each of these targets. This demonstrates the wider environmental and social impact of each credit we generate and places carbon credits at the heart of a wider ESG strategy that delivers impacts for people and wildlife beyond carbon.
5 – Bespoke biodiversity plans for each project
Each of our carbon credits is generated through nature-based conservation projects, and the finance used from the sale of credits is used to scale conservation. All of our credits are developed through native woodland creation, peatland restoration, and in the future, through blue carbon projects focused on the restoration of seagrass meadows and creation of wetlands, and saltmarshes. For each project, we create a long-term biodiversity restoration plan which sets out how we are aiming to restore natural capital assets, allowing natural processes to function, and bringing back the wildlife that has been lost. We measure the impacts on biodiversity through a data-led natural capital accounting framework, which provides an evidence-based approach to quantifying and demonstrating the biodiversity impact of each of our projects.
6 – Geo-locational tagging to identify underlying carbon assets
Given the challenges that some schemes have faced in terms of demonstrating that carbon has actually been removed from the atmosphere, transparency and evidence of delivery is incredibly important when investing in carbon credits. At all of our projects, we undertake detailed surveys of the landscape, digitally mapping areas where trees are planted and peatland is restored. This allows us to provide geo-location tagging of our carbon credits, so that buyers can identify the specific assets they are purchasing, obtain high-resolution remote sensing imagery of their credits, and access detailed drone footage of specific areas where their individual carbon credits are created, allowing unparalleled transparency and evidence of impact.
7 – Opportunities to visit the site and see your carbon
We believe that a premium carbon product goes beyond a digital record on a spreadsheet, providing something that you can touch, see, and feel. We make all of our projects accessible and visitable to credit buyers through guided walks around the sites and opportunities to stay at our unique and sustainable ecotourism experiences. This means that the organisations we will partner with can take their teams to see their trees in person, connect to the wider restoration of the site, and swim in the rivers they are helping to restore. Experiencing nature in this way allows buyers of our credits to see first-hand how they have positively impacted the environment for people and wildlife and provides unrivalled confidence, integrity, and accessibility in where their credits have been created and remain.
8 – Exclusive content to tell the unique story of each project
We see the natural capital economy as key to our shared future on Earth and we are committed to elevating carbon markets as a sector. We want the buyers of our carbon credits to be incredibly proud of the impact their investment is making. We will provide a unique set of digital images and videography with each vintage of our carbon credits allowing buyers to share the stories of these charismatic carbon credits and the people, places, and wildlife they are protecting and enhancing. By working together to share these wonderful stories we’re committed to making premium carbon credits aspirational and inspirational, helping to build the world’s most import alternative asset class.
9 – Social value commitment
We’re committed to positive environmental and social impact at each of our projects, and use the revenues generated from our carbon credit sales to help Scale Conservation for people and wildlife. This includes a specific set of targets that work to allow people to be a part of nature through providing homes and employment in rural communities, supporting educational and learning opportunities around nature conservation, and encouraging people to access and enjoy the natural world through ecotourism opportunities ranging from luxury holiday cottages through to glamping enterprises and even our wonderful partnership with CampWild, the UK’s leading wild camping platform.
Reassuringly Expensive Carbon
As the demand for high-quality carbon credits grows, buyers are becoming more sophisticated and are rightly demanding increased visibility, transparency, and confidence in their purchases and investments. One hugely respected private bank recently approached us to discuss carbon credits and described how they intended to purchase ‘reassuringly expensive’ carbon where they could be confident of every aspect of the product and the project from which it came.
Launching 2024 Vintage
In 2024 we will bring our first vintage of premium carbon credits to the market totalling around 50,000 tonnes at a minimum price point of £75 tCO2e. We will be engaging a single partnership for the sale of this vintage. The partner we choose will be able to demonstrate their commitment to Net Zero through a clear climate transition plan as well as evidencing the changes they’ve made to their business already. In forming a partnership with Oxygen Conservation, we will help to elevate and amplify premium carbon credits in the UK and internationally.
The choice of our language is specific and purposeful, we’re talking in terms of vintages as in French champagne or Scottish whiskey because we seek to elevate carbon credits in the same way as other premium, geographically unique products. In the same way that each vintage of single malt has its own unique origins, story, and environmental conditions, each vintage of our carbon credits will have the same. It is only by creating that same sense of appreciation and reverence that we will be able to achieve the price point we need to grow the natural capital economy and create the world’s most important asset class.
Conclusion
The single biggest cause of climate change is our failure to recognise the unique and incredible value provided to us all by the atmosphere and the wider natural environment. In failing to price the priceless we’ve instead made it free to exploit and abuse…
Carbon credits offer the most practical tool we have at our disposal to change our relationship with the environment and begin to repay the debt we owe.
In a nascent market filled with doubt, scepticism, and criticism we need a transformative product that can inspire people to believe that the impossible is possible. In the same way that the Tesla Model S was a quantum leap in electric vehicles and literally redefined our perception of the car, we will do the same for carbon credits, offering a premium product that completely resets our expectations of natural capital products and in the process, we will begin to build a sustainable foundation for the world’s most important asset class, and maybe even the UK’s next greatest export.
Didn’t someone talk about the world’s first unicorn conservation company?
Rich Stockdale
Founder & Managing Director