Strathclyde Institute for Sustainable CommunitiesNature Markets – Community Engagement and Benefits

Timeframe

2022 - ongoing

Overview

Natural capital markets are an increasingly important focus for international efforts to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss. The projects responsible for protecting - or bolstering - our natural capital stocks – and the ecosystem services they provide – will ultimately have an important impact on the communities that live with them.

There has therefore been an effort to establish market standards that outline best-practice community engagement and benefit sharing, in a bid to ensure these projects are designed in a way that empowers and enriches these communities, rather than the reverse. SISC’s work has sought to bring academic integrity to the development of these standards through engaging across a range of projects and with a range of private, public and third-sector partners.

Funders

Activities

2022-2023: Carbon Offsetting and Communities: co-developing alternative place-based voluntary offsets in Scotland

Partners:

  • University of Aberdeen
  • University of Edinburgh
  • University of Highlands and Islands 
  • Edinburgh Climate Change Institute
  • Scottish Government
  • Trees for Life
  • Highlands Rewilding
  • Scottish Land Commission
  • Community Land Scotland
  • Verra

Strathclyde led this project, which delivered a series of events during 2022-23, between researchers and practitioners that explore how VCMs are impacting Scottish communities and how they could be re-designed to maximize place-based, community benefits. Activities included four podcast episodes, two workshops and field-trip to visit two sites where carbon offsetting and community engagement was underway: Trees for Life (Dundreggan) and Highlands Rewilding (Bunloit Estate).

Loch Ness fieldtrip; a guided tour of the Trees for Life site

Loch Ness fieldtrip; in discussion with Jeremy Leggett of Highlands Rewilding

Attendees of the SUII Carbon Offsetting for Communities workshop in March 2023

2024-2025: Community Benefits Standard for the UK Nature Investment Market

Partners:

  • Deciding Matters
  • Nature Finance Certification Alliance
  • Finance Earth
  • Scottish Wildlife Trust
  • Soil Association
  • Scottish Land Commission
  • Karna
  • BSI

The FIRNS-funded project (Phases 1 and 2) focused on outlining and testing a business case for a new UK-wide thematic standard for nature market community participation and how this would translate to a clear set of community benefits. The aim was to establish a certification product that would provide buyers of ecosystem service credits assurances on the approach taken to generating place-based community benefits.

In Phase 1, Strathclyde were responsible for producing a review of best practice on Community Participation for Community Benefits From Natural Capital Projects. The literature review informed the design of a Community Benefits certification that would provide assurance on the approach taken to generating place-based community benefits in private finance natural capital projects, which the FIRNS project subsequently developed and tested.

Phase 2, focused on testing the standard that had been designed in Phase 1, in an effort to establish a commercially attractive, operationally sound Community Benefits Certification Process. Hannon was funded on both of these projects to provide expert advice and review the project outputs identified below.

  1. Nixseaman, R., Cook, A. (2025) Best Practice Guide: Community Inclusion for Community Benefit. Deciding Matters
    • This guide is the starting point for new project, offering resources and guidance to support the delivery and recognition of community engagement processes by nature-finance projects, resulting in the delivery of community benefits: meaningful social and economic benefits that promote the sustainable development of communities.
  2. Scottish Land Commission (2025) Community benefits from natural capital investment Route Map
    • A toolkit to turn meaningful community engagement into a detailed community benefit agreement.
  3. Nature Finance Certification Alliance (2025) Community Inclusion Standard and supporting documents
    • Certification for the validation and verification of meaningful community engagement and delivery of community benefit.

2024-ongoing: Community Engagement and Benefits – Code of Practice (BSI Flex 705)

Following the work on the Community Inclusion Standard, Hannon was invited to be Lead Technical Author of a new BSI standard - BSI Flex 705 V1.0 Nature Markets Community Engagement and Benefits – forming part of its Nature Investment Standards. This is the first standard produced by BSI, which provides practical, proportionate, good practice for suppliers of nature projects on how to engage and deliver benefits for local communities.

V1.0 of the standard was launched in March 2026 (see video), prior to undergoing public consultation during Spring and Summer 2026. This is with a view to produce v2.0 of the standard, which will be released into the marketplace in late 2026.

Outputs

Publications

2022-2023: Carbon Offsetting and Communities: co-developing alternative place-based voluntary offsets in Scotland

2024-2025: Community Benefits Standard for the UK Nature Investment Market

2024-ongoing: Community Engagement and Benefits – Code of Practice (BSI Flex 705)

Local Zero Podcast  Episodes

  1. Episode 41: Green Lairds and the great carbon offset: Edinburgh University/BIEE panel event(May 2022)
  2. Episode 42: The rise of Scotland's 'Green Lairds' - with Magnus Davidson(May 2022)
  3. Community Carbon Offsetting 1: Rekindling Community with Alastair McIntosh
  4. Community Carbon Offsetting 2: Panel Discussion with Hamish Trench, Ailsa Raeburn and Sarah Nicholas
  5. Community Carbon Offsetting 3: Ownership, Governance and Finance
  6. Community Carbon Offsetting 4: Empowerment, Enrichment & Impact

News and Media

Blogs

Presentations, talks and events

Last updated: 20 April 2026