Green finance, land reform and a just transition to net zero

Jon Hollingdale, CWA CEO, has written a discussion paper “Green finance, land reform and a just transition to net zero” which has been published as part of Community Land Scotland’s “Land and the Common Good” series.

The paper analyses the impact of financial mechanisms intended to tackle the climate and biodiversity crises in light of the high public profile of so-called “green lairds”. It concludes that concerns about the impact of green finance on the rural land market are well founded, but are symptomatic of the broader issues around Scotland’s unregulated land market. Addressing these requires a broad suite of fiscal measures and regulatory interventions to reform the land market and ensure that the transition to net zero builds community wealth not private wealth.

These measures should include:

• Review and regulation of green finance mechanisms to ensure that they contribute effectively to net zero;

• Reform of subsidies and tax exemptions which distort the land market and perpetuate current unsustainable land use, ensuring that any future fiscal measures are fully aligned to delivering the full range of Government objectives;

• Regulation of large-scale landownership and land use through a revised Land Rights and Responsibilities Statement, backed by Public Interest Tests;

• Provision of community benefit funds to help ensure a broader distribution of benefits from the transition to net zero.

You can download the paper here