A tenant farmer’s warning about land prices in the Cairngorms has become part of a wider Scottish argument over carbon markets, natural capital and who gets to remain on the land. The BrewDog Kinrara case shows how corporate climate claims, public grants, tree planting, carbon credits and estate ownership can become entangled.
A tenant farmer in the Cairngorms warned in 2022 that land which had once sold for about £500 an acre was changing hands for around £5,000 an acre, as carbon markets and natural capital investment began to reshape parts of rural Scotland.
The farmer was Alastair Nairn, described at the time as a farmer and director of the Scottish Tenant Farmers Association. His warning appeared in a feature about what campaigners were calling a green land grab: the acquisition of Scottish land for tree planting, peatland restoration and carbon sequestration by buyers whose main interest was not food production.
The issue is not whether tree planting or peatland restoration should happen. Scotland needs both, when they are properly planned, ecologically sound and locally accountable. The question is who controls the land, who benefits from the credits, and what happens to tenant farmers, food production and rural communities when carbon value begins to outbid agricultural value.
Nairn’s reported case has become a useful way of understanding the pressure. The Wicked Leeks feature quoted him saying farmland that once sold for £500 an acre was going for £5,000, and reported his concern that tenant farmers were being moved off land because they did not own it. A separate Press and Journal report from January 2022 identified Nairn as a farmer at Barluick Farm who had spoken out after losing his tenancy, saying the farm would be planted with trees.
Modern Scot has not independently verified every detail of Nairn’s tenancy position. The reported comments are nevertheless consistent with a wider concern now visible in Scottish land policy: carbon markets are changing the economics of land, and tenant farmers may be exposed where they do not control ownership or carbon rights.
The Scottish Land Commission has recognised that carbon and natural capital are increasingly influencing the land market. Its 2022 report on natural capital and land said carbon and natural capital were driving new motivations for land acquisition, while bringing both opportunities and risks. The Commission has also published guidance for landlords and tenants on carbon credits, explaining that woodland creation and peatland restoration can generate credits which may then be sold to another business to offset emissions.
That is the model in plain form. A landowner or investor funds or hosts an activity that is expected to remove or store carbon. Credits may then be created under schemes such as the Woodland Carbon Code or Peatland Code. Those credits can be bought by companies that want to compensate for emissions elsewhere. In theory, the system brings private money into restoration. In practice, it can also turn rural land into a balance sheet asset for companies seeking climate claims.
The SEFARI Gateway report on large scale land acquisition for carbon describes the market as uncertain and still developing. It says interest in carbon markets has increased rapidly and that buyers may be influenced by natural capital opportunities, tree planting and peatland restoration. It also notes uncertainty over how large scale carbon acquisitions may interact with agricultural policy, land reform, biodiversity gain and community interests.
Tenant farmers sit awkwardly inside that system. They may have worked land for generations, but ownership sits elsewhere. If carbon value raises land prices, changes landlord incentives or makes planting more profitable than grazing, tenants can find themselves caught between public climate targets and private ownership decisions. The Scottish Land Commission has said changes are needed to help tenant farmers take part in woodland creation and net zero opportunities, rather than being excluded from them.
The BrewDog Kinrara estate case shows how the public argument can unfold.
In 2020, BrewDog bought the Kinrara estate near Aviemore as part of its climate strategy. The company promoted the project as the Lost Forest and said it would plant trees and restore peatland while presenting itself as a carbon negative beer business. Later reporting put the estate at around 9,300 acres and said it had been bought for about £8.8 million.
The project drew public interest because it combined a consumer brand, a Highland estate, corporate climate claims, Scottish land use and public support. BrewDog’s tree planting received support through Scottish Forestry grant arrangements. A Scottish Government FOI response published in May 2025 says Scottish Forestry carried out a maintenance inspection in September 2023 and found significant deaths among planted trees. The same response says the loss of a proportion of planted trees is not uncommon and that replacement planting was required under Forestry Grant Scheme conditions.
The Advertising Standards Authority separately ruled in December 2023 on BrewDog carbon negative advertising. The ASA said consumers would understand the advertisement as meaning BrewDog, as a business, had a net effect of removing more carbon from the atmosphere than it emitted. The regulator concluded that the basis of the carbon negative claim had not been made clear in the advert and that the ad was misleading.
BrewDog later moved away from carbon negative and carbon neutral claims. In 2024, the sustainability business publication edie reported that BrewDog had dropped what it described as an unsustainable offsetting approach, citing BrewDog’s statement that the voluntary offset market had seen a flood of low quality schemes where the carbon benefit was highly questionable, and perhaps non existent. Other trade coverage also reported that BrewDog would step away from buying carbon credits and allow previous claims to lapse.
In 2025, BrewDog sold the Kinrara estate. The Guardian reported that the buyer was Oxygen Conservation, a company focused on natural capital and conservation investment. Oxygen Conservation announced that it had acquired Kinrara, saying the site offered scale and opportunity to advance woodland creation and peatland restoration. The Guardian later reported that the sale included pending issuance units connected to carbon schemes.
That sequence is why Kinrara has become more than a story about one company. A brewer bought a Highland estate as part of a high profile climate position. Public grant support was involved in tree planting. A regulator later found one carbon negative advert misleading. Scottish Forestry found significant tree deaths and required replacement planting. The company then stepped back from the carbon credit market and later sold the estate to a natural capital business.
None of that proves that all carbon schemes are worthless. Nor does it prove that every natural capital buyer is acting in bad faith. Scotland has degraded peatlands, biodiversity loss and woodland targets that require money, labour and long term management. Private finance may have a role in that work.
The difficulty is accountability. If a tenant farmer leaves, the loss is immediate and local. If land is planted badly, the damage may be ecological as well as social. If carbon credits are sold, the claimed benefit may be used by a company far from the glen. If trees die, the land remains changed while the climate claim may already have done its marketing work.
The Scottish Land Commission has warned that natural capital investment needs safeguards to protect public interest, local benefit and fair land markets. Community Land Scotland has also argued that green finance must be linked to land reform and a just transition, rather than allowing carbon money to deepen existing patterns of concentrated ownership. Those are not anti environment positions. They are warnings about who gets power when environmental value is financialised.
The food question has too often been treated as old fashioned, as if sheep, cattle, oats and local production belong to a previous century while carbon spreadsheets belong to the future. Rural Scotland does not have the luxury of such divisions. Land can store carbon, support wildlife, produce food, hold cultural memory, sustain tenants and provide work. The public problem begins when one value is allowed to purchase silence over all the others.
Scotland’s climate obligations are real. So is the pressure on rural communities. A land system that prices working farmers out, transfers control to distant investors and then sells carbon benefits to companies seeking climate claims will not command trust simply because it uses the language of restoration.
The question raised by Nairn’s warning remains unresolved. If a farmer can produce food from land for generations but lose out when the same land becomes more valuable as a carbon asset, Scotland has not solved the climate problem. It has moved the pressure onto people with less capital and fewer choices.
The land was never empty.
SOURCES
Wicked Leeks, “The great green land grab”, 30 May 2022
Scottish Land Commission, “Guidance on carbon credits: What you need to know”, 7 March 2022
SEFARI Gateway, “Large scale land acquisition for carbon: opportunities and risks”, final report
SEFARI Gateway, “Large scale land acquisition for carbon: opportunities and risks”, report page
Scottish Land Commission, “Carbon Markets, Public Interest and Landownership in Scotland”, May 2022
Community Land Scotland, “Green finance, land reform and a just transition to net zero”, 2022
Advertising Standards Authority, “BrewDog plc”, ruling G23 1210353, 20 December 2023
Scottish Government FOI 202400401331, “Lost Forest Planting Phase 1 at Kinrara”, 10 September 2024
edie, “BrewDog drops unsustainable offsetting approach and carbon negative pledge”, 21 July 2024
The Caterer, “BrewDog to relinquish carbon negative status”, 17 July 2024
