The Carbon Club is powered by Forest Carbon, one of the UK’s most established and experienced woodland and peatland project developers. We’ve been around since before there was even a standard in place to regulate the sale of carbon credits in the UK (so we helped to develop one). You can learn more about our experience and story here.

The Carbon Club was created by Forest Carbon to offer those looking to make comparatively small nature investments (compared to large corporates, so typically SMEs and individuals) a simple and reliable way to work together for nature. The platform allows us to pool smaller investments so that, together, they cover the costs of a whole woodland or peatland project. 

We are one of the UK’s most established and experienced woodland and peatland project developers; between 2006 - 2022 we were responsible for 4% of all woodland creation in the UK. We’ve been around since before there was even a standard in place to regulate the sale of carbon credits, so we helped to develop one. You can read more about this on our main site.

The amount you invest is up to you. It can be as little as supporting one tree, or an entire peatland! 

Businesses should aim for an accurate baseline of emissions (this allows targets to be set, and progress measured). However, we recognise this can be a data-heavy and often complex process. Therefore, for individuals and smaller businesses, we provide some guidance on what your approximate footprint might be, so you can start supporting nature as you work up to baselining.

Using nature-based investments to allow BAU (or life as usual) is not our recommended approach. Behaviour change and business decarbonisation are essential too.

PIUs

Taken from the Woodland Carbon Code’s definition, “A Pending Issuance Unit (PIU)" is effectively a ‘promise to deliver’ a Woodland Carbon Unit (or Peatland Carbon Unit) in the future, based on predicted sequestration (or avoidance). It is not ‘guaranteed’ and cannot be used to report against UK-based emissions until verified. However, it allows companies to plan for future UK-based emissions compensations or to make credible CSR statements in support of woodland creation.”

WCUs/PCUs

Woodland Carbon Units (WCUs) and Peatland Carbon Units (PCUs) are verified emissions reductions, which are only available once the carbon-saving benefit of a project has been realised. This process of converting PIUs to WCUs/PCUs occurs at verifications, undertaken and assessed by an independent third-party certification body.

The minimum requirement under the Codes means projects must be assessed and verified at year 5, and every 10 years thereafter. Verifications involve taking measurements at sample sites within the project boundary to monitor project performance and therefore calculate the volume of delivered carbon removals/reduction at that point. This is based on either the growth of the trees at a woodland scheme or the change in vegetation and degradation rate at a peatland site.

For UK woodlands, depending on variables such as species mix and management intervention, projects can take anywhere from 35 to 100 years to fully grow and remove the estimated carbon. This delivery of carbon removal by trees is also non-linear, with woodlands delivering very few verified carbon credits within the first 15 years, and the bulk happening between years 25 and 45, before tailing off in the remaining years.

Similarly, peatland restoration projects have long project durations (from 50 to 100 years). Again, verifications are conducted at year 5, year 15, year 25 and so on. However, delivery of units occurs linearly (pro-rata at each verification), meaning 5% of credits are delivered at year 5, 15% at year 15 and so on.

The UK's woodland carbon market is still young (only 15 to 18 years old). This means very few Woodland Carbon Units (WCUs) currently exist, and where they do they are likely already owned by businesses that invested at project inception.

The Peatland Code is younger still, with the first project only reaching year 5 verification recently. In fact, most UK projects within the Carbon Club were implemented and validated within the past 5 years.

The climate crisis is a global issue which requires a united, global response, so from a carbon perspective one tonne is one tonne. But beyond carbon, every project has the potential to deliver a host of co-benefits which are arguably equally as important as carbon sequestration/avoidance. When deciding on what projects to support, we believe ‘where’ is less important than ‘what’ it will deliver, and ‘how’ it aligns with your personal or organisational objectives. 

To make net zero or carbon neutral claims, you must purchase enough verified credits to cover your science-based carbon footprint, and they must be retired on your behalf. As there aren’t many of these credits in the UK market (for now), international credits can play a critical role in helping you fulfil these criteria. Please contact us directly if you would like to make carbon neutral or net zero claims.

If you have purchased PIUs or sponsored trees, you should not use 'offset' or 'neutral' terminology.

Once you become a member, you will have access to a Media Kit which includes comms guidance for all products in the Carbon Club.

All of our UK and international credits sit on one of the following online public registries: S&P Global’s IHS Markit (UK Woodland Carbon Code, Peatland Code and Plan Vivo) or Verra’s Public Registry (VCS). These registries list credits to help track accounting, such as origin, ownership, certification status, and carbon credit status (i.e. used or unused). This enables buyers to transparently demonstrate their fulfilment of environmental commitments.

When a buyer purchases carbon through the Carbon Club—whether in the form of PIUs, WCUs/PCUs, or other verified emissions reductions (VERs)—we add their credits to a pool, which will be retired under the 'Carbon Club' name (typically within 6 months of purchase). This retirement process ensures that credits cannot be reused or double-claimed by others.

Unlike our UK projects, we do not have a direct hand in the development of the projects we retail from overseas. However, we ensure we carefully select the projects we list by working with trusted, long-standing partners. All projects are certified under recognised high-quality standards that adhere to science-based core principles. 

We continually look to improve how we assess the projects we offer, including using third-party experts to carry out analysis, due diligence and vetting.

All woodlands and peatlands that we sell carbon credits from are certified under the Woodland Carbon Code or Peatland Code. These are the two major, government-endorsed and ISO certified voluntary carbon standards within the UK. These standards have a set of requirements that must be followed to ensure that projects will deliver on their goals. For example, projects must be verified at year 5, and every 10 years thereafter. Verifications involve taking measurements at sample sites within the project boundary to monitor project performance.

Quality assurance is essential in our field; no one wants to be caught in a greenwashing scandal, and we certainly don’t want to waste valuable nature funding. Drawing on the team's combined 55 years of experience, we have developed a set of guidelines (based on best practice) to ensure these projects meet their impact objectives. Learn more here.

Our project development team works closely with local forest managers and land agents across the UK and Ireland. This allows us to use local knowledge to design projects that are best fit for a specific location, delivering the most impact within the existing ecosystem, in line with potential future climate scenarios and without perverse incentives.

In addition, all projects closely follow UK government forestry guidance.

Due to decades of intensive land management practices like drainage, farming, pollution, and peat extraction, 80% of UK peatlands are damaged. This degradation causes them to dry out and release large amounts of greenhouse gases, previously stored for centuries. In 2017, UK peatlands emitted an estimated 23 million tonnes of CO2e, contributing around 5% of the UK’s total greenhouse gas emissions. Learn more about peatlands and peatland restoration, and find sources for those stats, on the Forest Carbon Knowledge Base.

Contributions start at 1 tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e).

Whilst you can make purchases up to whatever the available volume is for a single project or basket, we recommend for volume requirements exceeding 300 tCO2e to get in touch with our team directly.

This applies to tree sponsorship programmes, too.

Note: The cart only allows whole numbers.