BrewDog has replaced over 80,000 (30%) of the failed saplings in its Scottish Highlands reforestation project, the Lost Forest.
CEO James Watt said due to a hot and dry summer followed by a harsh winter, around 50% of the initial saplings planted for the project did not survive their first 12 months.
Watt said it was “pretty standard” for saplings to fail in a project of this size and scale, with its destiny “solely in the hands of mother nature”.
Watt said: “A month or so ago, we did a full assessment with our partners at Scottish Woodlands and replanting is ongoing currently and over 80,000 (30%) of the failed saplings have already been replaced and they will all be fully replaced by the end of this Spring.
“Not a huge deal overall - the weather killed some of our baby trees and we are currently well through the process of replacing them.”
The outspoken CEO meanwhile hit out at media criticism of the project.
“I really worry about the implications for sustainability here,” he added.
“Companies who try and take on this fight, are never going to get everything right every single time.
“If normal parts of the sustainability process are weaponized and sensationalised by the press and used to attack companies trying to do the right thing the net result will simply be that less and less companies being willing to take a stand against climate change.
“And that, sadly, will be a tragedy for everyone.”
In 2022, the brewer was awarded £1,229,496 by government agency Scottish Forestry over a six-year period to get its plans to plant a ‘Lost Forest’ “capable of sequestering up to 550,000 tonnes of CO2 each year” off the ground.
To date, it has received nearly £700,000 of public money to put the project into action.
The funds were used to pay for fences surrounding the 9,300-acre plot on the site of the Kinrara Estate, Inverness-shire, and to cover the initial planting phase.
After “the fifth hottest Scottish summer on record” and a winter of “savage gales and sweeping frosts”, over half of the tree saplings it planted in conjunction with Scottish Woodlands perished.
Losses were estimated to be at least 92,436 trees, according to figures obtained by campaigner Nick Kempe under a Freedom of Information request and published on the ParkswatchScotland blog.
Watt, who spent in the region of £8.8m to purchase the land for the project, said the setback showed “standing up to climate change can be an incredibly daunting task”.
“Woodland projects of this scale are always a challenge,” he wrote on LinkedIn. “You know that some saplings won’t survive, and you plan for it from the outset. But last summer’s extreme conditions resulted in a higher-than-expected failure rate, particularly Scots Pine, which is one of 11 native species we planted.”
A spokesman for Scottish Forestry said BrewDog would have to take remedial action as part of the terms of the government grant it received.
They said: “The level of loss here is higher than normal, which may be down to climatic factors after planting.
“The agent/owner will be required to replant the failed sections as a condition of the Forestry Grant Scheme contract to ensure that it is a fully stocked woodland at establishment.”
