Brewdog to plant 1m trees in £30m ambition to be carbon negative
Craft beer company Brewdog has bought 2,000 acres of Scottish highland to plant 1m trees, with the ambition to remove twice as much carbon from the air than it emits each year.
The Scottish brewery will create 1,400 acres of woodland and 650 acres of peatland restoration, with work expected to start early next year.
In the meantime Brewdog has invested £2m in carbon offset initiatives, funding two projects in the UK as well as Canada and Australia, making the firm carbon negative.
In total, Brewdog will invest £30m in its green project.
The firm, which worked with scientific advisor Mike Berners-Lee, has also accounted for the carbon created in its supply chain, which totals 80 per cent of Brewdog’s emissions each year.
Brewdog co-founder James Watt told City A.M: “We went to a dinner where David Attenborough spoke and that inspired us to dig deeper into this, and the deeper we dug we came to the very stark realisation that we weren’t doing nearly enough, and in fact we were massively part of the problem.
“The science was completely clear that we are sleepwalking off the edge of a cliff, there’s a huge climate crisis and massive change is needed now, not in the future, but massive change is needed today.”
He added: “It’s our carbon, it’s our problem and we want to fix it ourselves.”
The Brewdog forest, which was previously farming land, will be open to the public and company will host retreats and volunteer opportunities at a sustainable campsite and bar.
The firm is prepared to share its method and research with other firms, hoping to inspire businesses to follow in its footsteps.
“We don’t think that change can be led by government, who have proved to be incompetent in the face of climate change,” Watt said.
“That change has to come from progressive businesses, and we want to be a catalyst to help that happen.”