Summary

This research aims to contribute to England’s forest economics evidence base to aid land managers and businesses to make informed decisions on land use change and woodland management (England Trees Action Plan, Action 5.12).

It will achieve this through the collection and economic analysis of data on the costs and benefits of various woodland creation options, and by building up the evidence base to underpin development of a publicly accessible decision support tool to help estimate expected financial returns from woodland creation.

The project started in autumn 2022 and will end in March 2025.

Research Objectives

  1. Analyse the impact of planting trees and woodland on the value of land in England, considering factors including the characteristics of woodlands and time-profile of changes in land values.
  2. Estimate the expected cash-flow of landowners from woodland creation over different time horizons and develop a free open-access tool to analyse different cash-flow scenarios. This will include:
    • Use of one of the latest UK climate change scenarios for modelling expected timber yields.
    • Variations in woodland establishment costs.
  3. Update and extend existing data on selected UK hardwood price-size relationships.
  4. Examine the financial opportunity costs of woodland creation by comparing the financial returns from planting woodlands with alternative land uses including agriculture, renewable energy generation, and habitat restoration for biodiversity credits.
  5. Explore ways to help landowners overcome cash-flow and financial return barriers to woodland creation, focusing on two options:
    • creation of a scheme involving annual payments linked to expected future timber values and other potential income (e.g. carbon credits).
    • how investment opportunities in woodland projects can be aggregated to facilitate large-scale private investment in tree planting while also accounting for community preferences.

Context

The England Trees Action Plan has set a target of achieving 12% woodland cover in England by 2050 (Defra, 2021). Meeting this target requires a rapid increase in the rate of tree planting, with private landowners and businesses expected to play a crucial role. This project aligns with these aims and supports the broader UK goal of achieving net zero emissions by 2050 (DESNZ & DBEIS, 2022).

Downloads

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Hardwood Price-size Curves for 2022 Calendar Year

PDF | 0.81 MB
Document thumbnail

Hardwood Price-size Curves for 2023 Calendar Year

PDF | 0.64 MB

Outcomes

  • Tool to help economic analysts, policy-makers and others within the Forestry Commission and Defra assess the expected financial returns from woodland creation in different locations in England accounting for woodland type and economies of scale.
  • Journal article on the impact of woodland creation on land prices in England.
  • Updated price-size curves for selected hardwood species (2022, 2023, and 2024).
  • Improved information on opportunity costs of woodland creation to feed into policy on levels of grants support and analysis of climate change mitigation cost-effectiveness of forestry.
  • Report on mechanisms to help overcome financial, cash flow and investment barriers to scaling up woodland creation.
  • Infographics allowing landowners to understand evidence “at-a-glance” on the economics of woodland creation.
  • Final project report summarising results from the project.

Funding & Partners