By Sharon Hall, Operation Noah Campaign Manager
Over the past four years, we’ve campaigned for Church-owned land to be used for the benefit of climate and nature. Our goal is for Church land to become a model for carbon sequestration, biodiversity gain, and emissions reduction. While ecumenical in scope, we’ve focused particularly on Church of England land given the CofE’s status as one of the UK’s largest landowners. Through our Church Land Use Vision, we’ve set out recommendations to improve transparency, cut emissions, and restore nature – including a call for UK denominations to reach net-zero land emissions by 2030.
While progress across the full Church Commissioners’ portfolio has been uneven, their ambition for climate and nature has clearly increased since our initial report on Church land in 2022. There has been a step change in sharing information, with some encouraging examples of collaboration with forward-thinking farm tenants and conservation partners. They have conducted a major survey of their farming tenants and gathered baseline information about emissions from the land as well as encouraging more regenerative techniques. They have also taken steps to improve the important habitats within Sites of Special Scientific Interest on their land.
A summary of recent progress is outlined below, with a comparison graphic from 2022:
Transparency
Compared to the previous information shared in annual reports and their stewardship reports, the Church Commissioners 2023 report ‘Our Approach to Sustainability For Real Assets’ gave much more detailed information about the land held and estimated emissions profile. More recently they have published an updated Climate Action Plan which reports their climate progress since 2020 and targets for 2030. The Real Assets team began posting regularly on LinkedIn and has shared some positive case study documents and videos here and on their website.
Mapping
One of the goals of our Church land-use campaign has been to increase the transparency of where Church-owned land is located, as well as to get a sense of the state the land is in and what notable features it has, such as whether it contains peat. As befits a large landowner with a designated team, the Church Commissioners were already making progress on mapping their land before our campaign started. Their consultants undertook a Natural Capital Assessment in 2021, and limited information from this assessment has been included in their published reports. So far, they have declined to share any mapping publicly although we have heard that the Good Steward Mapping Tool is being rolled out to be available to key staff in Church of England dioceses.
Emissions
The 2023 Sustainability report linked above shared an initial estimate of emissions from Church Commissioners land which was surprisingly close to the estimate published in our 2022 report! The 2025 update gives figures which are not vastly different but they have made improvements to methodology and included some primary data from tenant carbon audits. They say that they want to continue to reduce emissions from church land but they have not set targets for this, making the argument that since the land is managed by tenants, better goals within their sphere of influence relate to maintaining sustainability of forestry, increasing green leases and criteria in farming tenancies and commercial lettings, engaging with tenants and increasing regenerative and nature-friendly farming. It is disappointing that discussion of progress against New Zero targets isn’t being addressed by General Synod as planned, and there isn’t discussion of Land – with its high emissions – being brought into the scope of these targets.
Biodiversity
Aligning concern for nature and climate goals was the aim of the 2024 General Synod Land and Nature motion which included a requirement that, within three years, the Church Commissioners would report on its progress ‘enhancing and supporting biodiversity across their agricultural and forestry land’. A Biodiversity Strategy was first expected in 2023, but the closest document is the 2025 ‘Spotlight on Nature’. There has been progress on care for Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) with 95% of those where the Commissioners own more than 1% classified as favourable, recovering, or working with a regional Wildlife Trust or nature conservation focused organisation.
Growing Trees
The Church Commissioners have been significant investors in forestry since 2011, and these investments have had seasons of major profitability. They state that all their forestry (85,000 acres across US, UK, Ireland and Australia) is sustainably managed as evidenced by independent, third-party certification. In addition, they have planted over 234,000 broadleaved trees creating more than 585 acres of native woodland in the past decade. One site at Bartonsham Meadows in Herefordshire has been designated part of the Communion Forest – an international forestry and environmental advocacy initiative supported by the Anglican Communion – although very technically Bartonsham is considered a meadow, not a forest.
Protecting Peatland
The large area of lowland peat owned by the Church Commissioners in the Fens falls within productive commercial farmland with ongoing tenancies. This makes the vital peatland protection work on these soils difficult to progress. The Church Commissioners has been working with Fenland SOIL to research and develop best practices for sustainable peatland management, including publishing some Grower Guidance. They have announced a partnership with Lancashire Wildlife Trust to restore some peatland within the Rainford Estate which they class as being on non-productive land.
Farm Net Zero
Our 2022 report identified farm carbon audits as an important first step towards reducing emissions on farmland, and we recommended formally encouraging and incentivising these. We have been very pleased to see the promotion of these including incentives through the new Soil Association Exchange scheme, and at least 33 tenants have completed them (40% of 83 respondents). New targets set by the Church Commissioners include increasing nature friendly farming, and including green lease clauses, as well as carrying out environmental assessments or criteria for all new long-term farmland tenancies.
Summary
We are hoping to see much needed additional progress in all these areas but it is important to recognise the steps that have been taken and the significant work that this represents from the Church Commissioners Rural Team and their tenants and conservation partners. We will be looking for progress in these same areas within dioceses and other denominations, some of which own significant areas of land including agricultural tenancies.
- Improving biodiversity on Church land is the subject of this action which you can join asking General Synod members to support protecting land for nature.
- You can still join in our postcard campaign addressing regional decision-makers regarding church land.
We are also aiming to publish progress report cards for other denominations as the information becomes available.
