In 2018, Crown Estate Scotland partnered with the Scottish Forum on Natural Capital, SEPA, Scottish Natural Heritage, the James Hutton Institute and SRUC to deliver the world’s first trial of the Natural Capital Protocol on land-based businesses. The Trial included 2 tenant farms and the Glenlivet Estate in Moray.

The Protocol was particularly useful in improving understanding of natural capital assets and ecosystem services, business dependencies and impacts and broader benefits to society. It was also helpful in understanding inter-dependencies between enterprises at the estate level.

Linked to this, Crown Estate Scotland believes that being able to articulate the farm/estate’s wider benefits (through quantification and valuation), will be enormously helpful for securing future public payments and revenue streams. Other benefits should include more informed decision-making, enhanced economic and environmental performance, greater resilience and a better understanding of risks and opportunities relating to natural capital.

Crown Estate Scotland also noted that the businesses involved with the trial were already progressive in relation to the natural environment and their natural resources, and therefore farms and estates which are less progressive in this way could potentially benefit more.

The Overview Report can be downloaded here, and all of the full reports are available on the Crown Estate Scotland website.