Nominee Summary
Caledonian Climate, now four years old, has been working with landowners across Scotland to restore and enhance degraded peatlands. With projects from Stranraer to Thurso and Islay to Wick, CCP designed and managed the restoration of 2850ha of peatlands during FY 2024/5; representing over 20% of restoration completed in Scotland during that period. As a team of 15 full time employees and having trained over 40 freelancers across Scotland, CCP is absolutely focussed on working collaboratively with landholders and communities to increase the speed and scale of peatland restoration taking place.
What was the motivation behind the work which was undertaken?
Ever since CCP was founded, our mission has been to increase the speed and scale of peatland restoration taking place in Scotland. The Government has set ambitious restoration targets and it became clear to the founders of the business that there was a need for a focussed and driven private sector specialist to support achieving these goals. Shortly after incorporation, and following completion of the first few projects, it became very evident that peatland restoration was about much more than carbon emission reductions. The biodiversity uplift was evident from day one, the water retention and resilience clear to see and the rural jobs that it had the potential to support were plentiful if we could collectively get it right. The ability to increase the scale of works taking place, expand the operating window for contractors (and bring them out of working through the winter months) and motivate landholders to engage in restoration through the peatland code and novel funding mechanisms has become a real driver for the business. More recently, the focus has centred on increasing the overall integrity of projects, by implementing robust monitoring and maintenance programs that look to protect the integrity of projects over the long term. It is this long term positive impact that is so important and it motivates the whole CCP daily.
Overcoming Challenges
The challenges involved in peatland restoration are plentiful. From uncertain funding landscapes, through to challenging weather conditions for practical contractors and species mitigations presenting logistical and financial challenges where they appear - a project is rarely completely straightforward. The main challenge for the 2024/5 financial year however, was the introduction of new funding criteria from PeatlandACTION. A deadline was put in place, scoring criteria were introduced and funding was uncertain until confirmation well into the financial year. CCP, through our collaboration with our landholder partners, secure the commitment of £1.4m of private contribution towards restoration works. This contribution was groundbreaking and significantly reduced the burden on the public purse for the financial year in question. The whole CCP team worked tirelessly over the March 2024 - May 2024 period to ensure that landowners were well informed and able to make clear decisions towards funding applications. The result of overcoming this particular challenge was a successful application round that saw 13 projects progressing with the support of PeatlandACTION funding. on commencement of the projects, the collaboration between contractors, landowners, CCP and PeatlandACTION was excellent and allowed for projects to progress and, in the most part, complete on time.
Including the community
We have been involved in several community engagement days on behalf of our clients and we continue to deliver training to the freelance team in order to ensure that they are well informed. The business are currently updating our community engagement practices and we are delighted to have been consulting with experts on the matter. More recently, with the launch of the Community Inclusion Standard, we have been looking at how to incorporate this best practice workflow into each and every project that CCP undertakes. As the Peatland Code continues to grow, we are also consulting with local groups on how they can engage with projects, volunteer through the restoration period and support monitoring over the longer term. Finally, we have also hosted, for the second year running, Exeter University and their student during a field trip where peatland surveying methodology was discussed and trained out.
