Twenty years of Forest Carbon: from handshake to lasting impact

Forest Carbon was founded on a pioneering spirit, a willingness to test new ideas, and the grit to keep going when others said it couldn’t be done. Twenty years on, having helped shape the UK’s voluntary carbon market at every critical juncture, we’re still guided by those same values.  

As we mark two decades of Forest Carbon, we’re reflecting not just on how far we’ve come, but on what it’s taken to get to where we are today and the people who’ve helped make it possible.

A handshake that started it all (2006)

Forest Carbon came into being in 2006, through a handshake on a platform at Paddington Tube station between our co-founders, James Hepburne Scott and Stephen Prior. 

“After an unexpectedly positive exploratory meeting with Marks and Spencer we shook hands at Paddington tube and agreed to start a business called Forest Carbon - we made the name up on the spot - and we decided that James would find the projects and I would find the businesses to support them”

~ Stephen Prior, Co-founder

At the time, there were no domestic carbon standards in the UK to enable a voluntary carbon market to function. Woodland creation was widely recognised for its environmental value, but there was no established mechanism to finance it through carbon. Rather than wait for the market to catch up, Forest Carbon set out to help create it.

Building a market that didn’t exist yet

The business itself grew out of Steve's Durham MBA dissertation, initiated by a research topic proposed by James to the university, which explored whether carbon finance could support woodland creation in the UK. 

In its earliest years, Forest Carbon pioneered the idea of carbon-financed woodland creation in the UK, drawing on best practice from similar emerging global voluntary markets, taking core principles and adapting it to the UK context. This meant operating ahead of formal standards, front-funding projects, providing assurance to landowners, and proving that a credible market for woodland carbon could exist. With early partners like Marks & Spencer, we proved it could work and that it could drive new tree planting at scale.

Working in coalition with other organisations, including the Confederation of Forest Industries (CONFOR), Forest Carbon helped make the case to the UK Forestry Commission for a formal woodland carbon standard. The idea gained traction, and in 2011 the Woodland Carbon Code (WCC) was launched.

Today, the WCC continues to be owned and administered by Scottish Forestry, the devolved arm of the Forestry Commission, and remains the cornerstone of the UK’s woodland carbon market.

“We’ve always believed in building the wider market rather than just building Forest Carbon.”

    ~ Stephen Prior, Co-founder

Firsts that shaped the UK VCM

Forest Carbon has long played a central role in the development of the WCC. Steve sat on the Technical Committee during its development (2009–2011) and later served on the Advisory Board from 2012 to 2021, with George Hepburne Scott continuing in that role until 2023.

Forest Carbon put the first ever project through the WCC’s Validation process, enabling the standard’s inaugural carbon credits to be transacted. These early projects provided critical evidence that underpinned confidence in the WCC and helped establish the credibility of the UK voluntary carbon market.

Several years later, Forest Carbon once again found itself helping to build something new - this time focused on peatlands, the UK’s most important terrestrial carbon store (1).

By 2015, the Peatland Code (PC) was ready to be launched, and in 2017, Forest Carbon was once again able to put the first project through the PC’s Validation process. Steve served on the Peatland Code Technical Advisory Board from 2016 to 2018, followed by George until 2020.

Interest in peatland carbon continues to grow as landowners and businesses recognise the multiple benefits healthy peatlands deliver, not only for the climate, but for biodiversity and water quality too.

We’ve had a few more firsts since too, including taking the first WCC and PC projects through to Verification, and more recently the first WCC project through self-assessment Verification. 

All of us at Forest Carbon are thrilled that our early support in getting the two standards off the ground has helped establish trusted pathways for investment into nature.

“It was all just really exciting - creating something new, solving problems, making it up as we went along (that’s better than it sounds!), working with some great people, who were open to the ideas - early adopters in forestry and farming, staff at the Forestry Commission working to set up this new market based mechanism, businesses supporting projects on trust before we had the standards.”

~ Stephen Prior, Co-founder

Growing the team and growing the impact 

By 2016, Forest Carbon had supported 94 projects, and the team grew by 50% when George Hepburne Scott joined as Business Development Manager. This period coincided with growing corporate awareness around sustainability, with many sectors beginning to square up to the immense challenge posed by climate change. 

Demand for high-quality woodland and peatland carbon projects has continued to increase ever since, and Forest Carbon has grown alongside it. Today, our team brings together expertise across varied backgrounds - all working towards the same goal: delivering real, long-term climate and nature benefits.

At the end of 2023, Forest Carbon became an employee-owned business through an employee ownership trust, reflecting our long-term commitment to the business and aligning our ownership structure with our values and principles. You can meet the full Forest Carbon team here.

Since those early days, we’ve grown both our impact and the number of projects we support. For us, impact isn’t an abstract concept - it’s visible on the ground in the woodlands planted and peatlands restored. It’s carbon captured, wildlife supported, and landscapes made more resilient. 

“We are super proud of the impact that our small business has had over the last years. There have been many challenging headwinds along the way. We have countered these by remaining nimble and staying focused on our central goal of driving more private funding into nature. We are hugely excited about what we can achieve over the next 20 years as the importance of tackling twin crises of climate change and the biodiversity loss increase exponentially.”

    ~ George Hepburne Scott, Director

From a handshake to now

A particular nostalgia comes with reflecting on the journey from those early days to now - but above all, a deep sense of achievement - recognising what has been achieved, of the people who have made it possible, and of the impact that continues to take shape.

As we look ahead to 2030, the UN’s decade of ecological restoration stretches ahead of us. It will undoubtedly be a time of great change for our planet’s economies and societies. At Forest Carbon, we recognise the challenges and also the importance of creating a more sustainable economy.

We remain committed to working with our partners to increase investments into nature-based solutions, and ensure the best possible outcomes from our projects across the UK and beyond. 

From everyone at Forest Carbon to Steve, and in honour of James, your vision set us on this path, and we’re incredibly proud to be part of the positive impact that began with a handshake on a Paddington Tube station twenty years ago - and continues to grow today.

Our work has always been intrinsically collaborative. From the very beginning, Forest Carbon has been built on partnership and on the belief that working together is essential to achieving meaningful, long-term impact. That belief is closely tied to our core principle of building the wider market, not just forest Carbon. 

Over the past twenty years, we’ve been incredibly lucky to work with so many open-minded people and organisations who were willing to test new ideas, share learning, and move forward together.

None of this would have been possible without the many people and organisations we’ve worked alongside over the past twenty years. We’d like to thank our project partners, foresters, landowners, buyers - past and present - and everyone who has contributed to making this milestone possible.

As ever, a picture (or in this case, a video) is worth a thousand words so please do watch our This Is Forest Carbon video and join us as we reflect on 20 years of progress, partnership and purpose.

Finally, it’s needless to say that we wouldn’t be where we are today without your support for the nature-based projects we deliver. Your support is a vote of confidence in nature-based solutions, and a recognition that collective action can continue to drive positive environmental change. As we reflect on our twenty-year journey, we’d like to say a heartfelt thank you for being part of it and for helping shape Forest Carbon from 2006 to 2026.

To follow the next chapter of our journey, you can keep up with Forest Carbon on LinkedIn and Instagram, and sign up to our newsletter to hear about our latest projects, partnerships and perspectives.

1. Peatland factsheet.pdf, (2021) UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology