A SCOTTISH firm of architects and planners has invested in a peatland restoration project to offset its carbon footprint.
Halliday Fraser Munro, which is headquartered in Aberdeen, says it is the first Scottish firm to invest in the Highland Carbon project in Wester Ross in the north of Scotland.
This is a 341 hectare site of restored peatland and small lochs in Ross and Cromarty that is home to more than 60 species of birds, 100 plant types and 36 different species of fungi.
“Some of the most iconic species in Scotland have been spotted here, including pine marten, otter, mountain hare, golden eagle and dippers that thrive in and on the river that runs through the site,” Highland Carbon adds.
Peatland restoration involves returning water to dried peatlands to restore natural soil saturation. This in turn promotes bioversity and helps the peat act as a ‘carbon sink’ – absorbing greenhouse gasses.
The Wester Ross project has the capacity to absorb the equivalent of 750,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide.
David Halliday, managing director of Halliday Fraser Munro, said the investment – for an undisclosed sum – reflected the firm’s focus on sustainability.
“As architects and planners, sustainability has always been at the core of what we do,” he said. “Addressing our carbon footprint as a practice is a natural extension of how we have been working for decades.”
Richard Clarke, the managing director and founder of Highland Carbon, said: “A brilliant aspect of peatland restoration is that biodiversity benefits happen from the off, with birds and wildflowers immediately beginning to settle on the site.”
Highland Carbon is also working on rewilding and reforesting projects in Argyll and Pitlochry and has seven other projects in development across Scotland, England and Wales.
Halliday Fraser Munro has 66 staff and offices in Belfast, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds and London. During lockdown, it has won £100 million of new work alongside £500m of construction projects in hand nationally.
Its projects include masterplanning for Queen’s Quay Clydebank, a £250m waterfront regeneration scheme; the £20m upgrade of Inverness Centre Retail Park and a new £55m Inverurie Community Campus in Aberdeenshire.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here