How Scotland's forests can deliver future prosperity with higher wages, affordable homes and more

Both these things can be done simultaneously, in principle, via projects that show the way. Actual and potential ‘solutions exemplars’ are all around us in the modern world. My favourite combines forests, nature restoration and timber buildings. I think of it as a ‘Nature Prosperity Pump’.

First let me describe how it works, then I will give the reasons why Scotland would be the ideal place to build this solution on a national scale. It would materially help in many of our most pressing problems, not least hitting our nature-recovery targets, building affordable homes that help abate the housing emergency, and rebuilding the rural economy.

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Wooden houses store carbon

The idea is in essence simple. We grow and restore far more forests than we have today. We do that in ways that enhance biodiversity, not deplete it. We harvest the timber sustainably, planting and regenerating more trees than we fell. We use the timber to make precision-manufactured, closed-panel, affordable buildings of the so-called Passivhaus standard (think uniquely comfortable buildings with low or zero energy bills).

If we do, we bring into play a vital tool to help fend off climate meltdown, because each cubic metre of wood contains around a tonne of carbon dioxide taken from the atmosphere. Put the wood into buildings and carbon storage can be almost guaranteed long term, because wooden buildings can be recycled. Along the way, we help stop and reverse biodiversity collapse because we plant and manage the forests in ways that do that, emphasising a mix of native species.

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Crucially, we show everyone, including those who deny the crisis in nature, a clear route to a job-rich future in a nature-based economy, where prosperity grows and inequality can be slashed. Why is that last bit vital? Because democracy is under dire threat in the modern world. Anger over rampant inequality is doing much to drive the threat.

Historically, democracies have done most of the leadership whenever and wherever environmental protection measures are brought in. So failure to protect democracy is increasingly a failure to protect the planet. Nature Prosperity Pumps will help in this protection.

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Importance of pension fund investors

Beyond that, a national Nature Prosperity Pump project in Scotland would meet the needs of many stakeholders in a nexus of mutually reinforcing, common interests. First, the government needs to hit its nature-recovery targets whilst building a healthy rural economy, fixing the national housing emergency, and moving forward its agenda to redress inequalities in land ownership.

Second, if Scotland is to hit its nature-recovery targets, the country’s nascent nature-recovery industry needs to grow, and to be sufficiently profitable to attract capital from pension funds and other financial institutions.

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It also desperately needs to fix the housing emergency. If the necessarily ambitious biodiversity targets are to be met, a large rural workforce will be required, and currently there is almost nowhere to house them.

Third, the forestry industry needs to grow, but to do so sustainably. It cannot be happy with either its record on hitting targets for timber production – the UK is second only to China in timber imports – or its past record on biodiversity. It knows it has to lift its game on both.

The good news is that there is growing appreciation in the industry that more planting needs to be a mix of native tree species, rather than monoculture stands of non-native species.

Jobs and general prosperity

Fourth, the construction industry is primed for system change. The traditional mainstream of the industry is dragging its feet in sticking to carbon-intensive methods of construction, but new players intent on the full use of timber – ideally locally produced – are waiting in the wings for the slightest encouragement, such as the introduction of the Passivhaus standard. The government has such a standard on its radar for 2026. It would be transformative.

Fifth, local communities are full of people aghast at the unavailability of housing and jobs, and many would surely welcome serious efforts to address the housing emergency with locally sourced timber, plus the jobs and general prosperity that this would entail.

Finally, companies needing nature-recovery credits are beginning to see the writing on the wall. Their social licence to operate will very likely be at risk if they do not join in seriously with efforts to hit nature-recovery targets. There are clear signs that the government will use the planning system to force companies in this direction.

An electrotech revolution

My final point concerns energy. Simply building with timber on the scale envisaged would cut use of fossil fuels deeply. Traditional construction is the single biggest source of greenhouse gases. But each of the new timber homes and other buildings could be non-fossil power plants in their own right.

Solar roofs and batteries would do that job. Built at scale, solarized timber buildings with on-site electricity storage would cut the need for massively expensive grid updates and put Scotland in the forefront of the electrotech revolution that is unfolding in the wider world.

All that is needed for this explosion of common interest to happen is a means to ignite the fuse. The way is open for the government to lead from the front, and a little action would go a very long way.

Jeremy Leggett is founder and chief executive of Highlands Rewilding. He won the $500,000 Blue Planet Prize, and this article is a summary of his commemorative lecture. Declaration of interest: he is an investor director of two companies that would benefit from a Nature Prosperity Pump project: Highlands Rewilding and Makar.