A major carbon credit deal could boost peatland restoration across the UK’s National Parks.

Currently, peatlands occupy 12% of the UK, of which 24% is within National Parks, though it has been estimated that 78% of UK peatlands are degraded and emit around 23m tonnes of carbon dioxide – or the equivalent of 4% of all UK emissions.

However, a new capital facility of up to £70m could transform the UK’s peatlands from carbon sources to carbon sinks and pave the way for farmers and landowners to access new funding.

Palladium, the international advisory and management company and Respira International, an impact-driven carbon finance business, have established the UK’s largest carbon credit offtake facility for peatland restoration.

This will be supplied by Revere, which was formed as a collaboration between Palladium and all 15 of the UK’s National Parks in October, 2021, with the aim of attracting much needed private finance into nature restoration across the parks. Revere works with existing land managers and communities to co-develop new business models for managing their land in a way that benefits nature.

This set-up is already working with landowners in the Cairngorms with a view to issuing the first carbon credits under this facility during the current year. The hope is that this will encourage other landowners in the National Parks to use this facility over the next two years.

Respira invests in high-quality carbon credits in the Voluntary Carbon Market (VCM) and unlocks capital to invest in the creation and acceleration of carbon reduction and removal projects around the world. It said there is no doubt that the VCM will play a vital role in the transition to a low-carbon future globally.

Various estimates suggest that the market for carbon credits could be worth between $20bn and $50bn by 2030. At the moment, trading turnover of the VCM had increased steadily over recent years to just under $2bn in 2021.

Corporate demand for high quality carbon credits is expected to drive this increase, with a growing percentage of the world’s largest companies setting climate targets and for which need to purchase credits.

Andrew Sutherland, director of Revere and head of nature-based Solutions at Palladium, said: “This is an exciting step forward for us, as we increase our efforts to leverage significant private finance into National Parks nature restoration.

"We need to increase the scale and pace of repairing damaged peatland in National Parks, and with Respira on board, we have a better chance of doing so.

"Farmers and landowners have been hesitant to engage with carbon finance, but this partnership with Respira is transformative as it allows us to say, ‘we guarantee you a floor price if you transform a parcel of your land into a space for nature restoration and we will share increases in the value of the carbon with you as well, rather than being completely exposed to market volatility’.”