Site engagement visits – nothing quite like them
Let’s start with a statistic: Almost two-thirds of employees cannot explain their company’s climate commitments. This leads to a more general claim that under half of UK employees know what their employer is doing on sustainability or net zero and fewer than 10% see how it applies to their own job.
One way to solve these issues of disconnect between what companies are doing and what their employees know about this: site engagement visits.
At Nature Broking we prepare carefully curated de-risked portfolios of carbon and nature credits for our clients offering them a choice of projects both in the UK and abroad depending on their requirements. We always establish very early on what is important to them. Is their carbon credit investment decision based on price or community co-benefits or water quality improvement or improvement of outcomes for biodiversity? And how important is location to them?
As many of the projects for which Nature Broking sells carbon credits are based in the UK, location can offer a key opportunity to our clients. Proximity to key projects facilitates offering volunteering or information gathering days to their employees (and their own supply chain) getting them out of the office to see at firsthand what exactly what their investment is helping achieve.
The benefits of climate change mitigation by removing carbon from the atmosphere come to life but it’s not all about carbon. A large number of our nature-based projects offer other impacts like flood management, newly created woodland with additional walks for the local community, improvement of water quality and creation and restoration of habitat for wildlife. It’s also great to give everyone a chance to get their hands dirty – planting trees, coppicing, creating specific habitat, building board walks etc.
For our nature-based + projects, they are able to see how the process of biochar or enhanced rock weathering works and how these nature + engineered solutions can improve productivity and profitability for farmers, whilst reducing chemical inputs.
Over the last few months, we have led visits to a number of projects. The format of the day is usually to give some background talks with Q & A on the project with a round of the Nature Broking Carbon Card Game as an ice-breaker, before a locally-sourced lunch and a lengthy walk around the project in the afternoon.
The guided walk or visit to a project or facility is the icing on the cake bringing all that they’ve discovered earlier in the day together and ensuring buy-in, interest and engagement from employees and decision-makers alike – a far cry from the lack of involvement cited in my first statistic!
Recent and planned visits
Regenerative Agriculture in action only 50 minutes from London – we organised a trip with Regenerate Outcomes to a farm near Milton Keynes which concentrates on improving soil health and, as a result, carbon sequestration, through careful management and grazing of land. Cover crops, herbal leys, tree planting and mob grazing increase carbon storage which generates Verra standard, Regenerate Outcome’s carbon credits. It was a great feeling to stand in a field planted with different types of grasses, sedges and herbs and feel the coolness of the ground beneath our feet on a scorching summer’s day.
Rewilding an ex-arable farm in Lincolnshire – a day out with Nattergal and our value chain-based QBE Buyers Club saw us walking the part of the project the Buyers Club had invested in, the highlight of which was the extensive beaver enclosure in which the stream was still running despite the record-breaking temperatures.
Circularity in Farming in Kent - we arranged a repeat visit to Bank Farm, Kent – a regenerative agriculture farm which concentrates on holistic interventions throughout the whole farm, enabling the circular economy, reducing inputs and innovating to increase carbon sequestration and generate UK Carbon Code of Conduct credits. Black soldier fly larvae in action at this one!
Landscape Recovery for multiple landholders – just this week we invited a large group in partnership with Great Yellow to the Lincoln & Witham Project, a nearly-6,000-hectare, multi-landowner initiative, stretching from the urban fringes of Lincoln towards Newark along the Witham Valley. This project’s ecological vision includes large-scale wetland restoration and floodplain realignment, the creation of new heathland and wood pasture landscapes, natural flood management (a particular priority given the region's hydrology), and a transition to regenerative agriculture – plenty to see and learn there.
Carbon Concrete near Bristol – in the dead of winter when nature is more dormant, we are heading to OCO Technology in Avonmouth which specialises in Accelerated Carbonation Technology (ACT), a high durability carbon capture and utilisation process that permanently locks CO2 into stable carbonate minerals, generating high-quality carbon credits using a low-energy method. The aim of the visit is to learn more about technology-based carbon credits showcasing the carbon capture process on the ground and enabling carbon market participants to make informed decisions about the value of these engineered solutions.
Join us for one of our planned site engagement days soon!
A few examples of glowing comments on the power and importance of site engagement follow which make it clear that proximity to a project and the ability to visit it is important to our discerning Nature Broking clientele.
Rachel Delhaise, Head of Sustainability, Convex Insurance: “It was fascinating to spend the day at Bank Farm. We are an insurance company and have emissions obviously particularly associated with our business travel which are difficult to do anything about so we buy carbon credits. And one of the projects we invest in is this regenerative farming project so I was delighted to come and actually see how it works, first with talks explaining the verification process which is super important for the whole legitimacy of the project and then about the complexity of regenerative farming.”
Anthony Ireland, Sustainability partnerships, education & community building, Better Insurance Network: “The day has been fantastic. This is how we should spend more days. Glorious to be out in nature.. I’ve learnt a lot. I’ve met some really interesting people from diverse parts of the economy and society. I’ve come to understand how complex regen agriculture is and how important science is and how if you have bad science you can make really bad decisions but if you have good science you can make really good decisions and amazing economies of scale and circularity. It’s been fascinating!”
Aidan Thomson, Environmental compliance and liability lawyer, Weightmans: “I’ve had a fantastic day and learnt so much about how things are done here. I think it’s been really insightful for everyone here and these are people who already know an awful lot about this sort of area but it’s been really useful even for us to go through it all and see it all in action. A key takeaway for me has been that actually if you really want to make a difference by farming in this way there are lots of things that are relatively easy to do that can make a really big difference!”
Gillie Fairbrother, Global Responsible Business Officer, Davies Group: “Thank you so much, such a great day and wonderful to see you all and get out in nature!”
Sarah Alsbury, Senior Climate Change and Sustainability Officer, Devon County Council: “I found the site visit to Beech Estate vital to see for myself the power of high-integrity UK based carbon offsets and the reasons behind Devon County Council’s decision to offset its residual carbon to reach their 2030 Net Zero target.”