Month: September 2023

More than £7.5million is to be ploughed into the improvement of lowland peat to reduce carbon dioxide emission levels and help regulate our climate.

The new government funding aims to bolster new action following recommendations from Robert Caudwell, the Chair of the Lowland Agricultural Peat Task Force.

Farmers will receive more support through the investment, which is also expected to strengthen drought resilience and help develop innovative water management projects.

What is peat?

Peat is an accumulation of decomposed organic materials and as it contains more than half of the country’s terrestrial carbon stores, it is a vital nature-based solution in the battle against climate change.

Peat soils, which store twice as much carbon as forests, are under threat due to them drying out from drainage to create agricultural land.

Why is rewetting peat so crucial?

Our UK peatlands store an amazing 3.2 billion tonnes of carbon and can alleviate flooding but they are drying out and will no longer store carbon, instead emitting it back into the atmosphere. Rewetting will help generate more peat and absorb new carbon as well as continue to lock carbon underground.

Rewetting them will not only help fight climate change but will also protect habitats for wildlife, birds and plants.

According to the government, there is currently only one percent of England’s lowland peatlands remaining in a near-natural state and it needs urgent preservation, in the form of rewetting, to boost food security and wetland biodiversity, protect communities from flooding and reduce CO2 emissions.

What is the Lowland Agricultural Peat Task Force Chair’s report?

Robert Caudwell has released a report recommending necessary government action for the sustainable management of lowland peatlands.

He said: “All the evidence demonstrates that reducing carbon emissions from lowland peat is vital as part of the United Kingdom government’s plan to tackle climate change.

“The report and the UK government’s response are important first steps in a journey that will require partnership between all stakeholders, and I am confident that the work that is already underway will give farmers opportunities to develop their businesses and contribute to the challenge of net zero.”

The Lowland Agricultural Peat Task Force was created by the government in 2020 to explore how to improve the country’s lowland farmed peat and ensure the longevity of future productive agriculture for years to come.

Mr Caudwell made 14 recommendations for peat soil management to government and the wider sector which include investing in water storage and management, technical advice on keeping peat wetter, creating private finance opportunities and adopting the task force’s roadmap for farming on rewetted peat (paludiculture).

How will the new funding be allocated?

The funding will accelerate deeper understanding of the lowland peat water challenge and will also pay for the installation of infrastructure and monitoring technology to enable more control of water levels in these regions.

Two pilot projects will receive the investment – firstly, the Lowland Agricultural Peat Small Infrastructure Pilot will receive £5.45m to support infrastructure installation and monitoring technology to control water levels for peat preservation and rewetting. The Association of Drainage Authorities will help deliver this project.

The Lowland Agricultural Peat Water Discovery Pilot, delivered by the Environment Agency, will receive the remaining £2.2m, which will allow a collaboration between local and water peatland partnerships.

Alan Lovell, Chair of the Environment Agency said: “The report findings combined with further research and development provide useful support and incentives to farmers looking to transition to more climate friendly farming of peat soils. This is set out in our National Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Strategy for England and Roadmap.”

Tony Juniper, Chair of Natural England said: “Lowland peatlands play an important role in combating climate change, by keeping carbon in the land and out of the air. Working with land managers and others, it is imperative we find ways to support livelihoods and produce what society needs while at the same time halting the degradation of peat soils.”

Tom Townsend, Principal Consultant – Agriculture, Food and Beverage at Acre, said: “Restoration of our peatlands has been a challenge for many years. It’s great to see such significant steps being taken, which hopefully signals a shift in mindset towards this vital resource.”

The government also announced a £5m Paludiculture Exploration Fund grant scheme supporting 12 projects.

About Acre

At Acre, we work with the most aspirational businesses with potential to make real change; from those who are just starting out to those who are well on the journey to crafting a legacy.

Our 18 years’ experience in sustainability recruitment, combined with our extensive global network, enables us to provide talent solutions that are designed to deliver this change.

Through our unique behavioural assessment technology, we understand the types of people, skills and behaviours required to create impact. We can develop these qualities within your existing teams too.

We find talented people and develop their skills to ensure they make a true impact in ambitious, progressive organisations.

Acre. Making companies ready for tomorrow.

We broke new ground when we first began publicly reporting our sustainability performance in the mid-1990s. Twenty-eight years later, our Report on Sustainability and its companion publication, the Climate Report, continue the practice of disclosing our progress in more than a dozen areas of environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance. Read more on our ESG progress in our reports .

We’re committed to preserving and promoting biodiversity in all areas where we work. This includes conserving habitat and reclaiming the landscape we’ve disturbed.

Our Approach

Throughout the life cycle of our projects, we seek to avoid, minimize, restore and/or offset impacts to biodiversity from our operations. We do this by:

• incorporating the principles of the mitigation hierarchy, integrated land use and management planning processes into project design, construction, operation, reclamation and closure

• mapping our disturbance footprint and using monitoring tools such as wildlife sweeps to understand and ensure our development activities avoid sensitive environmental areas and wildlife potentially affected by our activities

• minimizing disturbances to the greatest extent possible while considering multiple factors, including safety, operations and the environment

•employing mitigations such as wildlife crossings, low-impact seismic, waste management procedures and managing human-wildlife interaction to reduce conflicts

• measuring and reporting our performance against the Mining Association of Canada’s Towards Sustainable Mining Biodiversity Protocol

• engaging with local Indigenous communities

• working internally, with industry peers and with multi-stakeholder organizations to monitor, conserve, restore and reclaim habitat for birds, mammals, fish and other species, including species at risk such as caribou

Biodiversity monitoring and evaluation

We monitor biodiversity in and around our operations and reclaimed sites in accordance with our regulatory commitments and aligned with broader regional initiatives such as the Canada-Alberta Oil Sands Monitoring (OSM) Program. Reclaimed terrestrial, wetland and aquatic areas are monitored according to site-specific reclamation monitoring plans that assess the components of biodiversity while vegetation regrows and ecosystems develop over time. This monitoring allows us to collect soil, vegetation, wildlife use and water quality information to support reclamation certificate applications once it’s determined requirements have been met. We further evaluate biodiversity across our sites through wildlife monitoring. This is conducted in accordance with approved site-level wildlife mitigation plans that include bird deterrents at ponds; the use of wildlife crossings over above-ground pipelines; and strategies to manage human wildlife interactions.

Approximately 50% of Suncor’s oil sands lease areas in northern Alberta are within or near the range boundaries of the caribou, which is listed as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. These leases are also entirely within the geographic range of little brown bats and are located along the migratory route of whooping cranes. Both species are listed as endangered. Through remote cameras, we are able to monitor wildlife both in reclaimed areas and in proximity to our oil sands operating sites. Notable species observed using reclaimed habitat include the Canadian toad, Canada warbler and olive-sided flycatcher.

In collaboration with our industry peers, stakeholders and regulatory agencies, we work with organizations such as the Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute, the OSM Program and Canada’s Oil Sands Innovation Alliance (COSIA) to:

• mitigate and monitor the impacts of our operations, such as waterfowl landings on our tailings facilities

• understand and reduce the cumulative effects of oil sands development

• address regional biodiversity risk.

Caribou recovery and conservation

Complex combinations of natural- and human-caused factors in the oil sands region have created landscape changes and indirectly increased predation, resulting in declining caribou populations. We recognize that we must contribute to caribou recovery and conservation while mitigating our impacts on the environment. We are a member of COSIA’s Regional Industry Caribou Collaboration joint industry project. The project works with academics, the Government of Alberta and the Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute Caribou Monitoring Unit to co-ordinate restoration in priority areas, find new ways to improve biodiversity understanding, and restore habitat throughout northeast Alberta. These efforts all play a role in caribou recovery.

Land conservation

We value multi-stakeholder approaches to address industry impacts on the environment. We have partnered with the Alberta Conservation Association for nearly 20 years through the Boreal Habitat Conservation Initiative to help secure more than 4,000 hectares of ecologically sensitive land across 43 different conservation sites in Alberta. As voluntary offsets, these areas of intact boreal forest and wetlands have served to preserve biodiversity by ensuring the components of the larger boreal forest ecosystem have remained undisturbed.

Read more about our commitment to preserving and promoting biodiversity .