The Objective

To develop a comprehensive carbon baseline and decarbonisation strategy spanning scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions as well as removals, storage and emissions associated with a large and diverse land holding.

Case Study

In 2023, 3ADAPT were commissioned to develop the first iteration of a carbon baseline for the Woodland Trust. The original baseline built on work that the Woodland Trust had already undertaken through their SECR reporting, extending this to more comprehensively cover scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions including analysis of employee commuting, home working and purchased goods and services. It also included the first quantification of the carbon removals and storage occurring across the Trust’s woodland.

In 2024, 3ADAPT worked with the Woodland Trust to develop an updated carbon baseline, incorporating additional data that wasn’t available during development of the first iteration. This included an update to the emissions quantification for purchased goods and services as well as a significant update to the quantification of land-based emissions and removals. Using geospatial data on the Woodland Trust’s land and its associated characteristics, 3ADAPT developed a quantification of emissions and removals associated with both arable and grazed agricultural land, peatland and woodland across the Trust’s estate.

Data held by the Woodland Trust was used alongside the Woodland Carbon Code, Peatland Carbon Code, the emerging Greenhouse Gas Protocol Land Sector and Removals Guidance and appropriate assumptions and emissions factors identified through a review of relevant literature. This enabled development of both a baseline of land-based emissions and removals and a projection of anticipated future emissions and removals across the estate. In addition, recommendations were provided on how data quality and completeness could be improved across each land type going forwards to enable more accurate analysis and reporting.

Through the course of this work, an interactive dashboard was developed for the Woodland Trust which used geospatial data to map carbon removals, emissions and storage across the estate at a series of scales, from portfolio, to regional and individual site level.

In addition to the development of a carbon baseline, this work also explored methodologies for setting carbon targets for the Woodland Trust. This focussed on a review of the Science Based Targets initiative Corporate Net Zero Standard and Forest, Land and Agriculture (FLAG) Sector Guidance, exploring how this could be used by the Trust in practice, what the implications of this would be and how it could be communicated to different audiences.

The project culminated in the development of a comprehensive decarbonisation strategy for the Woodland Trust with pathways developed for all scope 1,2 and 3 non-land sources of emissions. Pathways were developed and explored with key stakeholders across the Trust and modelled from the baseline year up until 2050. Exploratory scenarios were also developed for agricultural (arable and livestock) emissions, peatland emissions and woodland carbon removals, presenting several potential interventions that the Trust could pursue along with their modelled impact on emissions over time.

3ADAPT have recently been commissioned to continue supporting the Woodland Trust with carbon reporting and to build on the decarbonisation strategy through incorporating sustainability into procurement processes across the Trust.

IMPACT

This project was seeking ways to reduce emissions of around 10,000 CO2e/annum whilst also increasing carbon storage and sequestration of their estate.