Helping firms go truly green

Jan 8 2009 by Karen Dent, The Journal

Planting trees at sites across the UK is helping major companies meet their environmental obligations. Karen Dent meets the man behind the business taking a root and branch approach to saving the planet.

FOREST Carbon aims to have planted 10 million trees by 2012 – enough to absorb five years’ worth of household emissions from the whole of Newcastle.

The Weardale-based business has ambitious targets for the future as it helps companies to meet environmental regulations which require them to offset the carbon emissions they produce.

It has planted trees around the UK for clients including Marks & Spencer, public transport giant Stagecoach and the Green Insurance Company, managing the whole process, including calculating clients’ carbon footprints and how much CO2 each scheme offsets.

Forest Carbon is the brainchild of Stephen Prior and James Hepburne Scott, who met while Mr Prior was studying for an MBA at Durham University Business School and was researching his dissertation on the role of forestry in mitigating climate change and the global carbon markets. Mr Prior said: “I was interested in economics and how you could apply economic principles to environmental problems so the whole idea of carbon trading seemed elegant.”

Mr Prior interviewed Mr Hepburne Scott while doing his MBA dissertation. He was the chairman of the Forestry and Timber Association, and they spoke often as he was doing his work and the interviews led to them working together.

Mr Prior added: “We are now both co-directors of the business. Four or five months ago, one of us had to leave our job to work on the business full time and that was me.”

Mr Prior is British-born but spent 12 years living in Zimbabwe, where his wife owned a farm. He had worked as the headteacher of a secondary school there but the couple returned to the UK when their land was seized by Robert Mugabe’s government.

Mr Hepburne Scott, a tree nursery director, farmer and forester, is continuing to work with the business in his part time capacity while also serving as the Scottish chairman of the Forestry and Timber Association.

Forest Carbon works on the principle that woodland cleans harmful carbon emissions in the air because it traps damaging dust particles and absorbs gases such as sulphur dioxide.

Carbon emissions from Marks & Spencer’s furniture delivery vans have been offset between 2006 and this year by the planting of 25,000 oak, birch and juniper at a forestry site in Northumberland.

And Forest Carbon has planted enough trees to offset the emissions from Stagecoach’s bus journeys from Edinburgh to Fife.

Mr Prior says although the idea is not new, there are not many other businesses offering the same service as Forest Carbon. “It’s the only company like this in the North East as far as I’m aware, and possibly the UK.

“It’s not an extremely original idea – it does happen in other countries,” he said.

He works with both large companies, which must offset their carbon by law, and those businesses which decide to embrace tree planting voluntarily. The business also offers a purely consultative side service for companies with compliance issues.

“It’s a murky market for people and people can make mistakes.

“We offer consultation even if they don’t end up using their carbon offsetting from us,” said Mr Prior. “Trees alone won’t save the planet but they certainly have an integral role to play in reducing pollution and global warming.”

Forest Carbon has now become a virtual member of Sedgefield’s science and technology business park NETPark. The park has created NETPark Net for North East companies to take advantage of the site’s benefits without being physically based there.

Mr Prior said: “By joining NETPark Net, we feel we are part of a business community and it provides us with more than just an address.

“There’s a great deal of support and advice on offer along with workshops and events which are helping us grow the business.”

“The company is keen to start working with overseas governments to help them to meet targets set under the Kyoto Protocol.”

CARBON OFFSETTING

CARBON offsetting is the term used to describe the way that businesses “compensate” for the amount of CO2 emissions they produce through actions such as driving, flying or heating.

By creating something which makes an equivalent CO2 saving, the carbon is said to have been offset or mitigated. Businesses have to calculate their emissions and then buy ‘credits’ from emission reduction projects.

In addition to planting trees, carbon can be offset through investing in projects or technologies that help to reduce global CO2 levels.

Trees have an integral role to play in reducing pollution and global warming