Carbon Tax & Trees

We're not believers in carbon offsetting as a real solution to climate change - it's the core activities of a business that need to become sustainable, and that's what we focus on. Having said that, we do have a carbon footprint, so we self-impose a "carbon tax" on our activities. We pay this to a Scottish charity called Trees for Life, who are working to restore 600 square miles of the Caledonian Forest.

The great forest of Caledon used to cover much of upland Scotland, as a vast primeval wilderness of Scots pine, birch, rowan, aspen and juniper. Land clearance for timber and the widespread introduction of sheep have seen this forest decline almost to the point of no return. Much of the Highlands of Scotland is a deforested "wet desert", rather than the unspoilt wilderness we imagine.

Trees for Life is working to restore the Caledonian Forest to a large contiguous area in the Highlands, linking up some of the best of the remnants, and aiming eventually to reintroduce the missing species of wildlife when enough habitat has been restored to support them.

Their vision is to restore a wild forest, which is there for its own sake, as a home for wildlife and to fulfil the ecological functions necessary for the wellbeing of the land itself. Trees for Life is unique in being the only organisation working specifically towards this end.

Land is fenced (from the nibbling of red deer) and sometimes just left for natural regeneration to take its course. As this land will be forest into perpetuity we see it as a way of soaking up some of the carbon dioxide we generate as a business.