£650,000 has been made available for proposals aimed at driving efficiencies in the administration, measurement and prediction of the carbon impact of the Woodland Carbon Code and Peatland Code projects.
This funding has been made available through CivTech, a Scottish Government programme that brings the public, private and third sectors together to ‘build things that make people’s lives better’. They take Challenges faced by government departments, public sector organisations and charities, and invite anyone with a brilliant idea to work hand-in-hand with us to create the solution.
With net-zero targets becoming an increasingly important goal, robust voluntary carbon market schemes such as the Woodland Carbon Code and Peatland Code have experienced a very positive growth trend. This positive trajectory has seen additional burdens placed on all involved due to a number of challenges such as administration, human resource and skills issues and the associated rising economic burden, complexity in ensuring a robust mechanism for auditable carbon credits etc.
With voluntary carbon market schemes such as these playing a vital role in driving finance into nature markets that not only help with carbon reduction, but also with improving habitat quality and abundance and the associated overall biodiversity in these ecosystems, it’s necessary to ensure that each scheme can keep pace with demand and continue to help drive these positive changes within the UK.
Both UK and Scottish Government policies point to the importance of creating woodland as well as restoring peatlands and to a dramatic increase in the flow of private finance into nature markets.
For example, the UK Government’s Environmental Improvement Plan set a target to grow private investment into nature in England to £500 million per year by 2027 and £1 Billion per year by 2030. Defra and British Standards Institute, through the Nature Investment Standards Programme, are creating the high-level framework in which nature markets will operate.
Scottish Government are also committed to developing a values-led high integrity market for natural capital and have set out their Interim Principles for Responsible Investment in Natural Capital in 2022 and the 2023-24 Programme For Government committed to publish proposals for a market framework to strengthen these principles. Scottish Government’s Climate Change Plan highlights the importance of the Woodland Carbon and Peatland Codes, and the intention to reduce complexity and facilitate increased private sector investment in nature-based solutions. The plan set a target to increase the woodland carbon market by at least 50% by 2025.
The success of this Challenge will be measured by greater functionality and efficiency in the carbon market, in particular in the way we predict and monitor carbon sequestration and emissions reduction. There would be a reduced burden provided to each scheme, whether that’s achieved through an advance in a technical approach, or by providing a more streamlined and integrated process. The biggest indicators of success will be a reduction in economic burden for those wishing to uptake either scheme, with a much more cost effective financial commitment for the lifetime of a given project, and timely, cost-effective ‘decision-grade’ information on the likely and actual carbon sequestration or emissions reduction.
Challenge sponsors said, “We are currently working with a number of different organisations that are providing services, help and support within differing areas of the codes. Examples being: creation of a new geospatial database to provide better access and provision of data held in spreadsheets, working on web based tools for onboarding of new projects, research into the use of remote sensing technologies to better perform monitoring and verification of projects. Working with validators and registries to incorporate any new technology into the project workflow. These are cutting edge challenges in the carbon market that require innovative solutions.
They said that, in the future, “Solutions that provide an API for third-party use will be necessary and any solutions will need to integrate with the UK Land Carbon Registry and internal systems in the Secretariat teams and verifiers. We are currently working with other third-parties that could result in their solutions requiring integrating. The solution will improve the infrastructure/measurement technology used within the UK’s Woodland Carbon and Peatland Codes.”
More information, including a short film introducing the challenge
Applications for this funding must be through Public Contracts Scotland
Closing date: Midday, 10 September 2024
Maximum contract value: £650,000