BrewDog sold Highland estate for knockdown price after abandoning reforestation plans | BrewDog

Self-proclaimed ‘punk’ brewing company BrewDog has sold its Highland estate at a knockdown price after abandoning efforts to plant Scotland’s ‘largest ever forest’ there.

BrewDog co-founder James Watt has claimed his Lost Forest project in Kinrara, Cairngorms National Park, would cover a “staggering area” and capture tens of millions of tonnes of CO2 over its lifetime.

The brewing company paid £8.5 million for the estate in 2020. Watt said it would highlight the company’s efforts to make Brewdog carbon neutral by planting millions of trees, restoring degraded peatlands and promoting ecotourism.

But in October last year, Kinrara was sold for an undisclosed price to “regenerative capitalist” carbon investment company Oxygen Conservation after Watt replaced BrewDog as chief executive and recorded losses of £37 million.

Oxygen Conservation used a controversial loophole in Scottish land registration rules to avoid making the price public without paying a fee, saying the brewer wanted confidentiality.

However, land records seen by the Guardian show Oxygen Conservation paid £8.85 million for Kinrara, a fraction more than BrewDog paid five years ago. But one might have expected the value of the estate to now be around £11.3 million in real terms, taking into account inflation and excluding the legal and consultant fees involved.

Analysis of the prices paid by Oxygen Conservation for its two other major Scottish sporting estates demonstrates the success of the Kinrara operation.

While Kinrara cost £2,351 per hectare in October 2025, Oxygen Conservation paid £4,687 per hectare for the nearby 6,080 hectare Dorback Estate in December 2024 and £3,086 for each of the 4,681 hectare Blackburn & Hartsgarth near Langholm in the Borders in April 2023.

Official documents show BrewDog also handed over valuable carbon credits to Kinrara worth at least £4.8 million as part of its deal with Oxygen Conservation, meaning Brewdog failed to realize the benefits of those investments.

The sale included hundreds of hectares of forest creation and peatland restoration projects initiated by BrewDog and funded largely by public grants approved by the UK’s carbon code system.

In 2023, they were allocated “pending emission units” (PIU) under the carbon code.

UEPs measure the amount of carbon dioxide expected to be captured by new forests or restored peatlands. Once the forest matures or the peat is restored, the PIUs are converted into full carbon credits, which can be much more valuable.

The sale included 130,000 PEUs of woodland worth at least £3.5 million and 46,500 PEUs of peatlands worth around £1.2 million, as well as the advance approval of hundreds of hectares of other woodland which will also receive PIU certification. Additionally, Oxygen Conservation plans to add nearly 100,000 additional PEUs through a second forestry project under development.

In 2024, forestry PSUs were selling for around £27, and around £25 for peatlands.

Oxygen Conservation founder Rich Stockdale believes the value of these units will increase significantly once the PIUs are converted into full carbon credits, providing his company with a significant profit. The company sold forest carbon credits last year for £125 each.

A spokesperson for Oxygen Conservation said: “We provide Registrars Scotland with all information necessary to complete the registration of title in accordance with the law. Beyond this, transaction values ​​and contract terms are confidential.”

BrewDog declined to comment. It emerged on Monday that a US company had paid £33 million for the brewery’s assets, but to the dismay of its staff and small investors, the deal led to the loss of 38 pubs and almost 500 jobs.

Land reform experts said Kinrara’s price tag could be further evidence that the market for Highland properties, which focus mainly on carbon credits, could be at a standstill.

Asset management company Aberdeen was forced to cut the price of Far Ralia near Newtonmore, which one of its clients bought in 2021 for £7.5 million, to earn carbon credits by planting up to 1.5 million trees.

His purchase of Far Ralia, just a few kilometers from Kinrara, has become a lightning rod for anger against the new breed of absentee “green lairds” who buy estates to earn carbon credits.

But after its investment firm client was hit by collapsing house prices and rising costs, Far Ralia was put back on the market for £12 million in July 2024.

It still hasn’t sold and the price was recently slashed by almost half to over £6.9 million. Aberdeen raised at least £2.56 million in public funding to plant around 1.2 million native trees, sparking criticism of its methodology and claims that many trees failed to grow.

Far Ralia’s discounted valuation includes a promise that nearly 330,000 PIUs from the estate are close to being validated, reinforcing suspicions that the carbon credit market is in trouble.

Josh Doble, director of policy and advocacy at Community Land Scotland, which campaigns for land tenure reform, said: “Once these projects are monetized through carbon credits, the profits are retained by landowners who plan to sell in a few years.

“Responsibility and risk will then pass to the next owner. This appears to be a clear case of short-term extractive land ownership. If these corporate projects raise such serious questions about their long-term benefits to local people and the economy as a whole, why is the government funneling millions of pounds through grants to private landowners?”

“These forestland grants have a critical role to play in ecological restoration, but they must be directed toward multi-owner collaborative projects and community or charitable projects that integrate local rural development.