Research completed October 2023

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7488/era/5005

Executive summary

Introduction

Land use transformation (and related reductions in greenhouse gas emissions) will be necessary to achieve Scotland’s ambitions to reach net zero emissions by 2045 as well as biodiversity and climate change targets. A variety of support systems for land use transformation, such as financial support and advice, are already in place. This study aims to understand how and why land managers engage, or not, with these support systems. This helps inform how policy could be best deployed to accelerate the process of change.

Influences on land manager decision making

We found substantial evidence for land manager behaviour and decision making that influences engagement with support systems. Their decisions are determined by a range of interacting internal and external factors, primarily related to financial, practical and cultural influences, which can be enabling or restricting, such as:

• personal values and knowledge
• perceived loss of control
• social norms/pressures
• trust in sources of information and advice e.g. land agents
• administrative burdens/transaction costs
• financial incentives
• awareness and understanding
• clarity of the benefits of change.

Restrictive barriers are compounded by context specific factors that vary across individual businesses, such as tenure, business scale and biophysical constraints.

Findings

Overall, the public sector grant-giving support network is logical to use. Most schemes are accessed through the Rural Payments and Inspections Division (RPID) portal. Other schemes are straightforward with regard to procedures. The RPID portal only requires one set of login credentials to access a wide range of support systems. Support systems under this umbrella are easy to access and do not require additional login credentials.

The administrative burden associated with applying to schemes, i.e. form filling, is a barrier to engagement. Procedural support (i.e. form filling by an adviser) is widely available from both public and private advisory sources but requires additional resource to procure. This is distinct from practical support, such as site-specific implementation advice, which was frequently mentioned by stakeholders as key to facilitating the uptake of environmental management practices and yet less readily available.

Land managers often decide whether to engage with support and advice based on confidence in its source. For example, farmers are more likely to trust advisers or organisations that have a background in practical farming over those from a consulting or academic background.

Land managers in Scotland primarily access public funding support. Some access private finance to supplement their income or achieve specific goals. Those accessing private finance generally do it to avoid the conditionality of public funding support and retain operational control over the management of their land. Combining Agri-Environment Schemes and e.g. the Peatland Code is perceived as overly cumbersome, with interactions between schemes, different application dates and the need to demonstrate additionality proving complex.

The breadth of support sources is confusing for some land managers. Better alignment, or at least signposting between sources, would be helpful. Ideally this needs to be via people as well as (rather than just) an online portal. This will enable land managers to choose the correct support more readily, according to their own circumstances.

Applicants would prefer administrative simplicity and greater flexibility. Therefore, efforts to streamline application and monitoring processes, reduce information burdens, widen application windows and vary contract lengths, are justifiable.

Administrative touch points and contractual constraints are only one influence on land manager behaviour. Improved accessibility and flexibility will not, by themselves, increase overall engagement with land use change. Other measures will also be needed such as attractive payment rates, sufficient technical advice and training, and management flexibility. Further research from workshops with potential support recipients, ideally out of peak summer work season, would help understand how future engagement can be maximised.

Abbreviations table

Introduction

Rural land use in Scotland directly supports the national economy, rural communities, and local businesses. Sustainable land use holds a key role delivering Scotland’s biodiversity goals and response to climate change. Agriculture is the second largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in Scotland, behind the transport sector, with emissions largely coming from livestock and soils.^[1] In order to achieve biodiversity recovery and climate mitigation and adaptation, agricultural transformation is required to reduce emissions, and capture carbon in vegetation and soils. A continued, long-term expansion and integration of regenerative agriculture, afforestation and peatland restoration will be necessary and is currently underway as part of the plan to achieve Scotland’s net zero targets.

This research was undertaken to gain a better understanding of the key influences that have a bearing on land manager decision making, including their motivations, what they want to achieve for their operation and their appetite for change.

The aims of the project were to map current support services across different land use sectors to inform our understanding of a land manager’s ability to make decisions and access funding and advice for different land uses. One of the key influences on land manager decision making is their awareness and engagement with support systems. “Support systems”, for the purpose of this report, refers to all sources of support that a land manager in Scotland could access to aid their management of their operation. This includes the following sources:

• Public funding support (e.g. Agri-Environment Climate Scheme (AECS))
• Private funding support (e.g. Woodland Carbon Code (WCC))
• Procedural and practical support from advisors, both public and private (e.g. Farm Advisory Service (FAS))
• Informal networks (Family, friends, and peers)

We looked at availability and links between existing and relevant land use information systems, support services, and current incentives for land use transformation which are directly related to achieving Net Zero and/or nature restoration.

Through stakeholder interviews and other evidence, we established where, when and how different rural land managers interact with the systems and services; we then collated the evidence for issues and barriers to access them. The results are presented using SWOT and PESTLES analysis, conclusions, and visualisations.

When we defined “land manager” we focussed our research on managers of agricultural land, including moorland, peatland and forestry, whether that be farmers, crofters, large estates or organisations such as NGOs.

Understanding land manager behaviour in relation to their awareness of, and drivers of actions that support (or not) environmental outcomes is complex. Decisions and outcomes in this area are a result of multiple interactions between agronomic, cultural, social and psychological factors, all of which sit within the national, regional and specific site context (Mills et al, 2016). Therefore, understanding land manager engagement with current support systems will prove equally complex.

To further our understanding, we carried out an evidence review of the literature. This informed the design of typical land manger archetypes to facilitate the analysis of how specific sectors in Scotland are engaging and accessing support systems. Please see Table 6 in Appendix B for the longlist of archetypes. The long list was used to gather further data, through stakeholder interviews, from both support providers and receivers, across the spectrum of land manager sectors in Scotland. Twenty-five stakeholder interviews were conducted, with participants ranging from support recipients such as crofters and farmers, to support providers and academics. Views from the agriculture, forestry and peatland sectors were captured. Attitudes relating to land managers’ ability and willingness to engage with support systems as well as what determines the level of engagement with these systems were explored. This included the types of support available, their pros and cons, as well as whether they were felt to be accessible, credible and available.

Reflecting its relative prominence within public expenditure and land-based businesses in rural areas, agriculture dominates much of published literature on land-use support. This evidence was supplemented by feedback from stakeholder interviewees, including individuals representing other sectors. The final step was to map the experience of six chosen, prioritised, archetypes in more detail. These are presented in section 6.2.

Full details of our methodology can be found in Appendix A-D.

This study included:

• Carrying out a rapid literature review. (methodology in Appendix D)
• Identifying and mapping the most prominent existing and relevant land use information systems, support services and the current incentives for land use transformation directly related to achieving Net Zero and/or nature restoration. (Appendix A)
• Developing typologies for land managers who might engage with these systems. (Appendix B)
• Agreeing a discussion guide (see Appendix C) for semi-structured interviews.
• Identifying a list of target candidate interviewees who were chosen to represent recipients of support, providers of information and advice, and academic experts. (Appendix C)
• Analysis of where, when, and how land managers interact with the systems and services.
• Presentation of evidence for issues and barriers to access these systems and services from the stakeholder interviews.

Introduction to land manager decision making

The literature is consistent in reporting that land manager decision making, regarding the use and management of their land, and therefore support system engagement, is influenced by both internal and external factors which combine to create individual circumstances. (Buamgart-Getz et al. 2012; Mills et al. 2016; Barnes et al. 2021; Conti et al. 2021; Thompson et al. 2021a).

These factors affect a land manager’s willingness and ability to adopt environmental management practices. The importance of this is underlined by the fact that climate is the most important element of agricultural productivity in many instances (Scottish Government, 2012). Therefore, once bio-physical conditions (an external factor in itself) have determined what management measures are suitable for a land manager, the wider range of internal/external factors will influence engagement with specific support systems offering funding, information, advice, and training. Table 1 below displays the different internal and external factors that influence land manager decision making, as identified by Thompson et al. (2021a).

Table 1 – Internal and external factors influencing land manager decision making – (adapted from Thompson et al. (2021a)).

The way these factors affect and interplay with land manager willingness – and their ability to adopt environmental practices – are shown in Figure 1 (after Mills et al. (2016)). For example, a land manager with limited resources, reliant on informal networks of support, with a strong anti-change personal attitude is unlikely to engage with environmental practices and support systems. Another land manager with higher access to finance, human and social capital, more formalised support networks and a positive outlook on environmental practices would be more likely to engage.

Figure 1 – Factors influencing land manager engagement, willingness and ability to adopt (from Mills et al. 2016).

These examples are clearly extreme ends of the spectrum. Landowners will all have a unique set of factors that influence their decision making when it comes to adopting environmental practices and engaging with specific support systems. It is for this reason that understanding and predicting land manager environmental behaviour and engagement with support systems is complex.

It is important to note that most of the literature on the subject of land manager engagement/motivations with support systems focuses on farmers. For example, (Sutherland et al. 2011) who state “research into actor influences on land use change (attitudes, motivations and objectives held by individuals and groups) has traditionally focused on single sectors, particularly farming. Neither is the range of landholding entities addressed, as emphasis is typically on private owners.”

Some studies (Ambrose-Oji, 2019; Tyllianakis et al. 2023) have explored wider land manager engagement with support systems in detail, however the focus in the academic literature remains centred on farmers. The reasons behind this focus are not currently clear, but it may be due to the large engagement of the agricultural industry with support systems, particularly financial support.

We have attempted to fill this gap in the literature through targeted stakeholder interviews with individuals representing land managers outside, as well as within, the agricultural industry.

Our evidence review has suggested that engagement with current support systems is primarily influenced by certain personal values and knowledge, perceived loss of control, excessive administrative burdens/transaction costs, a lack of credible financial incentives, a lack of awareness, understanding and clarity of the benefits of certain support schemes and social norms/pressures. These barriers are then further compounded by context specific factors that vary across individual businesses, such as tenure, business scale and biophysical constraints.

Land manager engagement with support systems is discussed in more detail in Section 6

Review of support systems

The next stage of this study attempted to identify the current land use support systems that land managers are engaging with in Scotland. This allowed us to map current support services across sectors in Scotland. Once we established the variety of support systems, we could begin to understand how land managers are interacting and engaging with these systems, whilst identifying key barriers and opportunities that could be used to inform future policy support.

We achieved this by firstly identifying a range of typical land manager archetypes in Scotland, followed by a review of all visible support systems identified through academic and grey literature review.

More detail on the types of support available is given in Appendix A Support in terms of funding is available from Government and the Private sector. Advice and information can be sought from direct Government sources plus third-party sources funded by Government (e.g. the Farm Advisory Service) but also independent third-party provision. Third sector, charities and Non-Governmental Organisations also provide landowners with advice and funding to undertake measures that align with their objectives.

Initial land use support system mapping

The infographic on the following page (Figure 2) displays a high-level mapping overview of the current land use support systems in Scotland and the extent to which land managers are engaging with each. Most land managers engage with government agency support and funding, with agricultural land managers doing this to a greater extent. This is mostly limited to schemes such as BPS and LFASS as these offer large rewards for less administrative actions compared to other schemes, such as AECS. Other land managers are more likely to be engaging with corporate buyers and private sector sources of support, such as emerging natural capital opportunities.

Figure 2 demonstrates clearly that the land manager support network in Scotland is a complex entity, with different land managers drawing from a wide range of support sources. Whilst it has not been possible to quantify the exact support flows between support providers and support receivers, we have provided an indication of the overall network and flow of support in Scottish Agriculture, helping us map current land manager engagement with support systems.

Figure 2 – Land use support system providers in Scotland. Source: Adapted from Sutherland et al. (2023)

Stakeholder views on engagement with support systems

It was recognised from the outset that the results of the evidence review must be calibrated against the lived experience of key stakeholders. We were able to conduct 25 interviews, and had scheduled to supplement this with additional workshops, but it proved very difficult to gain substantive input from planned workshops due to the timing overlap with the peak summer workload alongside harvesting.

We have captured the results of the stakeholder feedback below. This should be read alongside the review of the literature which is presented in section 7. Whilst there are significant similarities between the evidence from the literature review and stakeholder perceptions from the interviews, we recognise that this evidence would be usefully supplemented by a more in-depth form of action research with a wider stakeholder group, in particular potential support recipients, which would help to deliver more substantive results.

Factors influencing land managers’ decisions.

Stakeholder interviewees identified many factors influencing the ability and willingness of land managers to change management practices and/or land use patterns. Although varying in terms of emphasis and specific examples offered, there was a high degree of agreement across stakeholders (and consistency with the literature) regarding the main categories of (interacting) influences, which can be summarized as follows:

Confidence and understanding

Land management involves a range of tasks requiring both practical skills (e.g. handling livestock and machinery) but also organizational (e.g. resource allocation) and strategic (e.g. business planning). Changing land management practices and/or land use patterns requires expanding this skill set. However, not all land managers currently have the necessary skills, leading to many having a low understanding of how to change and low confidence in abilities to change successfully. Conflicting messages about the definitions, relative merits and compatibility of different practices (e.g. afforestation, regenerative agriculture) cause significant confusion, reinforcing an underlying wariness of changing unnecessarily.

Indeed, stakeholders were concerned that basic awareness amongst many land managers of requirements for change under both future agricultural policy, but also private supply-chain pressures, is still very low. Clearer and more consistent messaging from government and industry leaders would help, particularly if it was accompanied by more detail on practical support measures, including funding levels, the provision of information, advice and training, and any implications for future eligibility for land-related tax breaks and other public funding sources.

Resource constraints

Although any given parcel of land can be used for a variety of purposes, its underlying natural capital and biophysical characteristics (e.g. climate, topography, soils) exert a significant influence over its inherent suitability for different uses. Consequently, land managers do not all face the same land use possibilities to deliver particular ecosystem services. The Less Favoured Area (LFA) designation recognizes this in agricultural production terms but variation in suitability to deliver other ecosystem services is also recognized through various environmental designations (and indeed spatial targeting of agri-environment measures).

Farm type provides a convenient, albeit crude, indicator of likely flexibility in agricultural land use, with many hill and upland livestock farms being particularly constrained. The JHI Agricultural Land Capability Map (and equally the forestry suitability map) offers a more refined indication, but greater use of maps to categorise potential to deliver wider, environmental services would be helpful. For example, High Nature Value (HNV) farming.

Beyond biophysical constraints, farm businesses are also constrained by the availability and quality of other resources – in particular, working capital, equipment and labour. Stakeholders stressed that many farm businesses operate on very slim margins and are risk averse, limiting the scope for experimentation and investment in new management practices or forms of land use. Financial support can help to overcome this, as can support scheme contracts’ length and flexibility. However, labour scarcity and the relentless nature of farming often leave little spare time to devote to engaging with the process of change.

Geographical remoteness and/or poor communications connectivity can add further challenges. So can small scale – smaller businesses with fewer resources (especially labour) typically lack both the economies of scale and flexibility available to larger businesses to accommodate/experiment with change. This limits their ability to be creative and do something different. Some larger businesses have recruited in-house expertise and/or they directly commission academic and other consultants, particularly in relation to emerging nature-based solutions and rewilding exercises.

Transaction costs

The transaction costs of seeking information, advice, training, and external funding to implement change can be significant. To make it easy for all applicants, sources of information, advice, training and funding should be easy to locate. Administrative processes for applications, monitoring and reporting should be simple and accessible, including in their choice of language and terminology.

Stakeholders acknowledged that accountability for public expenditure necessarily requires a degree of bureaucratic oversight. However, they expressed concern that the complexity of some funding schemes^[2] was a deterrent to some applicants, including those with little spare time and/or an unfamiliarity with administrative processes. This phenomenon was described as ‘form anxiety’. The difficulties of coordinating across multiple sources of information, advice and training were recognized, and it was suggested that clearer signposting and the use of one-stop-shops would be welcome.

Smaller businesses lacking the staff and/or finance to hire specialist advisors may be particularly affected by transaction costs, facing a proportionately greater burden than larger businesses. For example, there is often a fixed cost element to application processes regardless of the level of funding sought and having to seek information directly rather than being able to delegate to staff can have a high opportunity cost.

Tenure

Farm tenure exerts a direct influence over land managers’ ability to undertake change, particularly between different land uses. Specifically, whilst owner-occupiers have the freedom to choose how they manage their land, tenants are constrained by the terms of their lease. The degree of restriction varies across different types (e.g. length) of tenancy, with crofting tenure adding some further complexities, particularly in relation to common grazing.

In most cases, agricultural tenancies restrict the range of land use activities permitted. For example, afforestation and non-agricultural enterprises are typically precluded from leases by default (although may be agreed via negotiation). Moreover, non-agriculturally productive parcels of land (e.g. pre-existing woodland, riparian habitats) are often excluded from the area covered by a lease. Consequently, the ability of many tenants to implement and benefit from land use change is currently constrained.

However, some stakeholders believed that the issues around tenure constraints had become better understood in recent years and were hopeful that the forthcoming Agriculture Bill would address many of them.

Motivations and norms

Beyond the practical constraints suggested above that influence a land manager’s ability to change, willingness to change is also affected by various factors. In particular, by an individual land manager’s attitude towards and motivation for land management and by cultural norms held by family, friends and peer groups.

Land managers need to perceive how change fits with business viability and continuity. Some land managers (e.g. rewilding estates, NGOs) may be motivated to undertake change primarily by seeking environmental improvements. Others may be more motivated by the traditional farming values centred around food production, and they be more fundamentally opposed to activities perceived as incompatible with growing or rearing consumable produce. The latter is particularly relevant to debates around afforestation and (to a lesser extent) peatland restoration.

Many land managers are starting from a mainstream farming perspective, although not all are; other groups are perhaps more open to change such as community groups, foresters and horticultural producers. Stakeholders suggested that variation in willingness to change was likely to be significant across the full population of land managers and would complicate any targeting of encouragement to change.

Stakeholders also noted that willingness to change could ultimately be influenced by financial pressures, whether via public finding or market signals, but that sustainable change would require cultural shifts – winning hearts and minds. This implies a need for clear industry leadership backed-up by the provision of information, advice and training plus (probably) encouragement for generational renewal. Negative perceptions of bureaucracy and of support payments simply flowing to advisers (a ‘consultants charter’) are widespread.

Types and sources of support

Stakeholders identified different types of support for land managers, distinguishing funding from other forms of support.^[3]

Funding

Funding was further divided into public and private, although the emphasis was very much upon public funding. Public funding for land management is dominated by agricultural support, notably decoupled area payments plus limited voluntary coupled support. Significant funding is also available for forestry and peatland restoration, plus wider agri-environmental schemes, innovation funds and various capital grant schemes. Public funding is also available to land-based businesses from other sources, such as the Enterprise Networks (see Table 2 for listing).

Stakeholders regarded public funding as essential to achieving management and land use change; in particular to offer financial incentives (or at least reduce disincentives) to make change worthwhile and to encourage any necessary capital investments. However, it was noted that inflation continues to erode the real terms value of public funding, decreasing the leverage that it has over management decisions.

Private funding for changing land management is also available. For example, there are high-profile cases of new and large landowners essentially self-funding and/or harnessing emerging environmental funding mechanisms. The latter include the Woodland Carbon Code and the Peatland Code.

However, the accessibility of such mechanisms to all land managers (e.g. tenants, common grazing, smaller holdings, community owners) is imperfect. Moreover, considerable uncertainty exists over the future value of carbon credits, and the possibility of claims over them by downstream supply-chain partners. Consequently, notwithstanding Scottish Government aspirations to increase private funding, stakeholders expressed some scepticism about the potential of private funding to replace public funding.

Non-funding support

Stakeholders also sub-divided non-funding support, into procedural support to help land managers navigate bureaucratic processes (e.g. advice on how to complete application forms, enrol in training programmes) and support to help with actual activities on-the-ground (e.g. training in new management practices). Both were regarded as necessary, but the degree of procedural support required relates back to concerns about transaction costs.

Procedural support tends to either take the form of information and general advice provided by the source of any funding, or the form of professional assistance to comply with application and reporting processes. For example, public funding is accompanied by online (and sometimes print) public guidance material plus online, phone and (sometimes) face-to-face advice on (e.g.) eligibility criteria, payment rates and evidence requirements. Private sources (e.g. land agents, consultants) often mirror this, but also offer further hands-on assistance to gather necessary data and complete paperwork plus more bespoke advice for individual land managers.

Practical support is similarly available in different forms from a variety of sources. Indeed, stakeholders emphasized the huge variety of forms and sources (see Table 2 for listing). For example, information is available via print and social media from public (e.g. Scottish Government, NatureScot, SEPA, Universities), private (e.g., levy bodies, consultants, input suppliers) and third-sector (e.g. NGOs) providers and advice can be offered one-to-one or one-to-many^[4] either online or face-to-face. Moreover, face-to-face may involve a simple meeting or a site visit or demonstration. Vocational training (e.g. via Lantra or colleges) tends to involve face-to-face events, but online training can suit some strategic and planning type skills development. Stakeholders suggested that the breadth of support sources was confusing for some land managers and better alignment or at least signposting between sources would be helpful, although signposting ideally needs to be via people as well as (rather than just) an online portal, for land managers to define the correct source of support for their own individual circumstances.

Importantly, stakeholders also stressed the role of informal sources of information and advice. For example, family and friends plus unrelated business professionals (e.g. accountants, vets). Peer group networks (local but also international) of like-minded people can also be important – indeed some stakeholders identified these as particularly relevant for emerging practices such regenerative agriculture and agro-forestry which some stakeholders regarded as not well-served by more formal support mechanisms. Peer networking can be encouraged through trained facilitators and funding.

Availability, accessibility and relevance

Uptake of information, advice and training requires land managers to trust the source and to see the relevance of what is being offered. This poses a demand-side challenge in persuading land managers of the need for change and relates back to points made above regarding the need for clear, consistent messaging from government and industry leaders to set the tone – particularly in relation to strategic business skills and new technical skills.

However, it also poses supply-side challenges in terms of the availability and accessibility of information, advice and training. Government only has leverage of this through either direct provision itself, or funding of third parties to provide support. Stakeholders noted that availability was already patchy geographically and in terms of specialist topics. Moreover, they were not confident that public funding levels would be sufficient to cover all future requirements – implying a need to prioritise particular topics or groups of land managers, and/or to rely more upon online and one-to-many methods (despite experiential, hands-on learning being viewed as more effective).

Citing diminishing returns and the 80/20 rule^[5], some questioned the merits of trying to accommodate all ‘hard to reach’ groups (e.g. smaller producers, new entrants, women, the very young, those with poor mental health). However, the Women in Agriculture initiative was cited as a good example of targeting.

Furthermore, even if future funding was sufficient, stakeholders were not confident that sufficient appropriate advisors would be available in the short-term. Trust depends on perceived credibility and, rightly or wrongly, in many cases this requires advisors to have agricultural backgrounds – yet the types of management and land use changes required extend beyond agriculture. This implies a need to upskill existing advisors but also to recruit advisors from different backgrounds – either to work in teams or (hopefully) to be accepted as credible by land managers.

Stakeholders offered a variety of solutions to this problem, including allowing the Farm Advisory Service (FAS) to evolve in terms of its modes of operation and topic overage but also to sub-contract other independent and/or specialist advisers (including existing land managers) as appropriate. Deployment of RPID staff to offer advice as well as conducting inspections was also suggested, reminiscent of previous policy eras and also, to some extent, emulating more recent practice in forestry and catchment management.

The use of facilitators rather than advisors was supported by some stakeholders, reflecting (possibly) easier recruitment (technical expertise is less essential than people skills) and perceived advantages of facilitated experiential learning rather than expert instruction.

It was also suggested that advisors should be included more formally in policy design and monitoring processes since they are well placed to offer insights into how ideas will be received and implemented on-the-ground. It was noted that total formal advisory capacity includes those working for input (e.g. seed, feed, fertiliser) suppliers as well as those aligned with FAS or working independently.^[6]

Table 2 – Cited examples of support

Land manager experiences of support systems

As part of this research project, we attempted to identify and map all existing and relevant land use information systems, support services and the current incentives for land use transformation directly related to achieving Net Zero and/or nature restoration. An outline of all the support schemes identified can be found in Appendix A. We then collected additional information on a sub-set of current support systems administered by the Scottish Government, to explore specific touch points for land managers. To frame this exercise, we firstly mapped the main agencies within the Scottish government that are responsible for the relevant land manager support systems (Figure 3).

Figure 3 underlines that multiple agencies are responsible for providing and administrating support to land managers in Scotland. This has the effect of increasing administrative burdens for land managers if systems across agencies are not in sync in terms of data collection and system operation.

Figure 3 – Agencies responsible for land manager support in Scottish Government

Insights from the literature

We can gain significant insight from published grey literature about where, when, and how land managers interact with support systems and services. There are three highly relevant published pieces of work. The first is the RPID customer satisfaction survey (RPID, 2021), where RPID customers gave their views on the application process and how it could be improved. 2147 customers filled in this survey, providing a robust sample size to gather insights from. The second piece of work is the NatureScot Research Report 1254 (NatureScot, 2021), where biodiversity outcomes were evaluated. This included a quick survey of applicants’ views on the application process. The third piece of work is ‘Doing Better Initiative to Reduce Red Tape for Farmers & Rural Land Managers’ (SRUC, 2014) where regulations (or their implementation) that impinge on business decisions were identified and solutions were put forward to address these.

Administrative burdens

The general literature review (reported in Section 7) and Stakeholder views (reported in Section 5) revealed that the administrative burden and ‘form anxiety’ associated with support schemes can significantly affect land manager engagement with support systems.

We can relate this to the RPID survey responses, in particular the question ‘Applications made to other schemes in the last twelve months’. Interestingly, 77% of RPID customers stated that they did not make another application to another non-SAF (Outside BPS, LFASS, AECS, FGS) scheme in the last 12 months.

Groups who had not made another scheme application are compared below:

• More owners (80%) than tenants (74%) and business partners (70%);
• More other businesses (84%) and farms (79%) than crofts (73%);
• More older (84%) than younger (66%) customers; and
• More customers that completed their SAF with support (81%) than those that completed it on their own (74%).

This would suggest that for the majority of RPID customers, the main support systems they are engaging with fall within the bracket of the SAF administrative process. It appears that many land managers are only engaging with SAF and not applying for schemes outwith this (e.g. AECS, Peatland Action etc.). Although it is difficult to draw conclusions from this question alone, the supporting evidence from this report would suggest that the administrative burdens are a considerable factor in preventing land managers from engaging with other support systems outside their SAF application.

For instance, the RPID survey found that a substantial number of RPID customers felt that application processes were too complicated, or the application forms were too long or complicated. When asked what customers’ main reasons for dissatisfaction with information from RPID, the main two reasons given were:

• The application process is too complicated (53%)
• Application forms are too long/complicated (52%)

Furthermore, in the 2013 RPID customer satisfaction survey, the most common reason for dissatisfaction with information from RPID was ‘not enough information being available’ (29%). This suggests that the administrative burden involved with applying for rural funding schemes has become a more significant influence on farmer decisions in the period between 2013-2021.

The challenges of administrative burdens are further reinforced when customers were asked about the ‘aspects of RPID’s performance customers would like to see improved’ where the most popular answer was ‘application forms are easy to complete’ (42%). One respondent was quoted:

“Website and all forms etc. need to be rewritten and simplified. They need to be clear and concise and user friendly. Use words not acronyms. Use far fewer words.”

We find further evidence to support this in SRUC (2014) where a list of recommendations is provided to the Scottish Government on how to reduce red tape burdens placed on farmers and land managers. Recommendation 5 states that an IT system should be developed that reduces the form filling burden for farmers and land managers – reducing administration costs. This recommendation also suggests that a full review of data requests from farmers and land managers is undertaken to ensure that duplication is minimised.

Despite this point being raised in 2014, the findings from the RPID survey suggest that from 2013 to 2021 administrative burdens on land managers applying for government support schemes have increased.

Support required to access funding

There is also substantial evidence that suggests that many land managers in Scotland require support to submit applications to financial support systems. Evidence for this is provided by the RPID survey, where the following three points were cited as the reasons why customers needed some support with their Single Application Form submission:

• Personal (e.g., first time completing form, learning disability) – 43%
• Mistakes (e.g., want to avoid mistakes) – 41%
• Forms (e.g., difficulty accessing forms, take too long to complete) – 34%

This would suggest that many land managers find the current administrative processes involved with submitting applications to support systems a significant barrier to engagement and require support to ensure that they can access these. The response to this question suggests that the current complexity is leading landowners to obtain procedural support to complete their applications.

Of those that are using procedural support to complete applications, SRUC agents are the most common support agents being used (48% of cases). Interestingly, other business (not farmers) used commercial agents to support applications 51% of the time.

Land manager support system mapping

This section presents three infographics (drawn from RPID survey data and our findings from the previous sections of this study) representing the typical land manager pathways to access agricultural support systems in Scotland. Each infographic is broken down into four main sections (from left to right). The first section, motivations, highlights the broad overarching motivations that a land manager is looking to achieve within their business objectives. This includes motivations such as ‘business support’ and ‘woodland establishment’. The following section highlights the agency touchpoints that a land manager will engage with if they decide to follow one or multiple of the previous motivations. This includes both the agency (such as RPID) and the specific scheme that relates to that motivation (such as the Forestry Grant Scheme for Woodland establishment). The third section shows the administrative actions that are associated with engaging with each different support scheme, including information such as what IT system is used (e.g. RPID portal) and if support is generally needed by a third party. The final section details what kind of login credentials are needed for each administrative action and if these are shared or unique for each scheme.

Figure 4 represents all the pathways open to land managers, providing an overview of the support system landscape. Figure 5 highlights the pathways that a typical farming land manager could take. Figure 6 highlights the pathway that a non-farming land manager, such as an estate, could take. The following sub-sections draw out some of the key findings and help understand where, when and how land managers interact with support systems and services.

Figure 4 – land manager support system map

This figure presents an overview of all the motivations, touchpoints and administrative actions that a land manager could undertake if they were to take certain pathways. Key points from this infographic include:

• It appears that land managers only need to have one login credential to access all support services via RPID (Rural Payments and Inspections Division) in Scotland. This is the RPID portal login, where land managers can access the SAF, AECS application, SSBSS & SUSSS form and FGS application. For those schemes not under the umbrella of the RPID portal (Peatland Action), online submissions are required that do not require login credentials (FAS applications still require RPID Business Reference Number however). This would suggest that login credentials do not pose a significant barrier to land manager engagement with support systems.
• Regarding touch points, RPID is the agency that land managers are most likely to be engaging with for funding. This is because the most popular support schemes (BPS, LFASS, AECS etc.) are administrated through this agency. Other support schemes that are not administrated by RPID, such as the Forestry Grant Scheme, are still accessed through the RPID portal. FAS and Peatland Action support schemes are accessed outwith the RPID portal, but require relatively simple administrative inputs to complete.
• Overall, the RPID public sector support system network is administratively logical from a high-level perspective. The majority of schemes are accessed through the RPID portal, and those that are not are procedurally straightforward in terms of required steps. However, the level of detailed information needed by certain schemes makes accessing a wide range of these extremely challenging for some land managers in Scotland (recalling from section 5 that land managers differ widely with respect to skills and confidence to tackle administrative processes and implement management changes). For example, AECS applications are considered very complex due to the level of information that needs to be provided along with the lengthy application form/process. Furthermore, Forestry Grant Scheme applications require a level of detail that is beyond most typical land managers’ (farmers etc.) knowledge, leading to a reliance on external specialists to complete applications.
• On the whole, this would suggest that the complexities in land manager support systems, including the level of detail needed for specific applications are reducing engagement with systems that could encourage improved environmental management practices. This does not take into account private schemes, such as the Woodland Carbon Code, which would only add to this complexity.
• All other things being equal, administrative simplicity is preferable to complexity and (for applicants) greater flexibility is preferred. Hence efforts to, for example, streamline application and monitoring processes, reduce information burdens, widen application windows and vary contract lengths, are justifiable. However, accountability for public expenditure requires a degree of bureaucracy to ensure that funds are disbursed and used as intended, and simplicity and flexibility for applicants may impose additional complexity for administrators. Consequently, there are trade-offs, and the scope for improvements in process design alone will typically be limited.
• This implies that other steps need to be taken to improve accessibility, including the provision of additional procedural information and advice – which necessarily incurs additional public administrative costs, raising familiar questions regarding the appropriate degree of such assistance and whether it should be universal or targeted at specific groups.
• Moreover, administrative touch-points and contractual constraints are only one influence on land manager behaviour, implying that improved accessibility and flexibility will not by itself increase overall engagement with land use change. Other measures will also be needed. For example, attractive payment rates, sufficient technical advice and training, and support for capital investments.

Figure 5 – farmer decision pathway map

This figure presents an indicative pathway through the support systems that would be taken by a land manager (farmer) who does not have any specific environmental goals (woodland establishment, peatland restoration) but would like to improve the efficiency of their operation and reduce their overall impact on the environment. It is important to stress that this pathway is indicative, and it is not intended to represent all farmers in all locations. In reality, as explained in the literature review in section 7 later, all land managers will have a unique set of motivations, barriers and opportunities regarding land management practices that will affect their engagement with support systems. The findings from this infographic are summarised below:

• The majority of farming land managers will be engaging with support systems that are accessed through the SAF process (BPS etc.) as these are familiar and provide a high level of financial support for a relatively small administrative and practical input.
• Land managers of this type could also be engaging with AECS. This provides the land manager with an opportunity to improve the economic performance of their operations, whilst also benefitting the environment. Land managers will often choose options that require the smallest practical/administrative inputs compared to financial returns. Many land managers will require support from a third party to complete their AECS application due to the complexity of information required.
• Many land managers of this type will rely on FAS and other agents, along with informal networks, to provide procedural support to their applications to support systems. This is because farming land managers are often time-poor due to their focus on practical activities on farm, relying on others to assist with the administrative processes of applying to support schemes.

Figure 6 – Non-farmer decision pathway map

This figure presents an indicative pathway through the support systems that would be taken by a land manager (non-farming) who is looking to diversify the use of their land, improving economic and environmental performance simultaneously. Again, it is important to stress that this pathway is indicative, and it is not intended to represent all non-farming land managers in all locations. In reality, as explained in the literature review, all land managers will have a unique set of motivations, barriers and opportunities regarding land management practices that will affect their engagement with support systems. The findings from this infographic are presented below:

• Non-farming land managers are much more likely to engage with a wider range of support systems outwith those administered by RPID. This may be due to a mixture of different beliefs, fewer/different constraints on time and resources and more desire to diversify income streams to ensure financial resilience.
• These land managers still often rely on external specialists to assist with certain elements of the application process, such as external forestry consults when applying for the Forest Grant Scheme.

Figure 4. Land manager support system map

Figure 5 – farmer decision pathway map (N.B. this is indicative and not intended to represent all farmers in all locations.)

Figure 6 – Non-farmer decision pathway map (N.B. this is indicative and not intended to represent all non-farming land managers in all locations.

Land manager attitudes – a review of the literature

Factors affecting engagement with support schemes

The literature review highlighted that internal factors such as attitudes, beliefs and personal values can have a significant impact on engagement with support systems.

Values and knowledge

It was recognised as far back as the 1970’s (Gasson 1973) that farmers do not always make financially rational decisions and that a range of social and intrinsic factors may also be prioritised; risk perception, values and knowledge are particularly influential in business decision making.

Land managers, in particular farmers, generally have a strong sense of self and are often influenced by their intrinsic values. This theme can be explored when looking at land manager attitudes towards planting trees on their land. Historic literature suggests that land managers have a resistance to creating woodland and forests, due to traditional values surrounding the belief that measurable productivity and growth are their traditional core purpose. Burton et al. (2008) explores the importance of the ‘good farmer’ identity, where social status and personal validation is derived by the evidence of delivering a skilled role on landscapes, i.e. livestock farming. Burton (2004) concludes that planting woodland and forest (afforestation), as well as engagement with other non-farming activities, represents both a loss in productive output and a symbolic loss of the opportunity to demonstrate farming skill and knowledge.

Farmers often resist afforestation on this basis, with agriculture and forestry historically being viewed as competitors for land rather than complementary land management practices that could be adopted as a sustainable approach to single proprietary unit diversification (Nicholls, 1969; Hopkins et al. 2017). Therefore, as many farmers perceive themselves to be farmers only, they are unwilling to change their practices due to inherent values that are tied to their current activity. This trend is likely to be seen across most landowners, not just restricted to afforestation, who will possess their own objectives, values and knowledge. For example, Moxey et al. (2021) note that the willingness to participate in peatland restoration schemes is highly variable, and that cultural ties shape attitudes towards restoration activities.

On the other hand, some land managers have intrinsic values that prioritise attempting to balance the need for a productive enterprise and protecting/enhancing the environment. Mills et al., (2017) found that it was common to hear that farmers were attempting to find a balance between production and environmental management, which were not always seen as conflicting needs.

This is reflected by the well documented finding that farmers (and land managers as a whole) are often willing to adopt environmental measures if they are perceived to increase the efficiency of on farm activities and therefore prove cost effective (Feliciano et al. 2014). For example, Farsted et al. (2022) noted that climate mitigation measures are mainly perceived as, treated as, and appreciated for offering farm-beneficial functions other than climate change mitigation by Norwegian farmers. This is also reflected in the Farm Practices Survey (2022) where 44% of farmers thought that reducing emissions would improve farm profitability and that the main motivation for farmers to take action to reduce GHGs on farm was that it was considered good business practice (84%).

Unsurprisingly, those land managers that are personally concerned/motivated to address climate change are more likely to be undertaking environmental management measures on their land. Those who are less engaged are likewise less likely to be undertaking environmental management practices.

Ease of transition, control and risk perception

An important aspect of land manager engagement with support systems is the perceived degree of control afforded by the available schemes and the ease of operational transition.

Academic literature in this area has focused on exploring the barriers that prevent uptake of Agri-Environment Schemes (AES), specifically focusing on schemes that restrict land manager’s ability to control and own the final product that is being delivered. For example, Lampkin et al. (2021) suggest that a top-down prescriptive approach of some AESs has failed to engage farmers in a way that would give them ownership of the delivery of environmental goods. This view is supported by Daxini et al. (2019) who found that the intention to follow a Nutrient Management Plan is primarily driven by perceived behavioural control.

Thompson et al. (2021) further suggest that farmers are more likely to participate in AESs if they retain some control over implementation, which requires flexible terms and regular monitoring. Therefore, it appears an important element of how land managers engage with current support systems involves analysing the degree to which each support system will affect operational control.

Another key internal factor that will influence land manager engagement with support systems is risk perception. Multiple sources suggest that the clarity and certainty of the final objective of any support scheme is important to its uptake and success. Analysis from the James Hutton Institute (Rajagopalan and Kuhfuss, 2017) suggested that the uptake of the Agri-Environment Climate Scheme (AECS) was restricted by the lack of flexibility in options, along with the uncertainty on the environmental outcome due to the influence of external factors outside of the land managers’ control (climate, pests etc.)

Kuhfuss et al. (2018) also suggest the success of AES may vary depending on the clarity of the objectives and perceived challenges in achieving them. For example, afforestation is a relatively easy concept to understand and is generally low risk, however peatland restoration is much more difficult conceptually and is seen as a higher risk option. Indeed, peatland restoration may seem to be of high risk because UK peatlands are at the southern limit in the northern hemisphere and therefore at risk due to anticipated climatic changes.

The tolerance of land manager to the inherent risks that are involved with engaging with support schemes that require alterations in management practices is an important factor in determining uptake.

Socio-demographic, age and education

The traditional view within the literature is that older land managers are less willing to change land management practices and that younger and more educated farmers are more willing to adopt new practices and engage with environmental support schemes. Sutherland et al. 2016; Mills et al. 2016; Brown, 2019)

This is often supported by evidence that younger people have a higher degree of environmental concern, risk tolerance and openness to new practices (Dessart et al. 2019). Therefore, younger land managers may be more able to engage with support systems and understand the requirements and trade-offs involved. Benni et al. (2022) reported that the age and education of farmers was not found to affect time requirements to fill in administrative burdens. This suggests that the transaction costs associated with support systems does not interplay with age and education levels of applicants.

When analysing the factors behind farmers’ adoption of ecological practices, Thompson et al. (2023) found that socio-economic factors were insignificant more often than they were significant. Despite these findings, Tyllianakis and Martin-Ortega (2021) argue that the evidence base suggests that wealthier land managers stand to gain more than less wealthy land managers in enrolling in AESs. The impact of socio-economic and demographic factors on land manager engagement is therefore likely to vary considerably across different sectors and organisational structures.

Engagement and trust of official advice vs. informal networks

Due to the rise of information available (mainly through the expansion of digital services), answers can be found to many real-world and agricultural issues and questions online. Rust et al. (2021) suggest that farmers have previously often relied on in-person advice from traditional ‘experts’, such as agricultural advisors, to inform farm management practices. Sutherland et al. (2013) stress the importance of the perceived credibility of sources of advice. This view is supported by Daxini et al. (2019) who found that trust in technical sources of information (e.g. advisor and discussion group) is found to be a more influential determinant of farmers’ attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioural control than trust in social information sources (e.g. family and the media).

Nonetheless, Birner et al. (2006) and Sutherland et al. (2022, 2023) highlight the breadth of sources of information, advice and training utilised by land managers, encompassing family and friends, peer groups, accountants, vets, input suppliers, private consultants, NGOs and public sector bodies, accessed in different modes including via print and social media, online, one-to-one meetings, group meetings and events/demonstrations.

This is discussed further by Rust et al. (2021), who suggest that farmers are now changing their information sources due to the rise of online sources of knowledge and advice, foregoing traditional ‘expert’ advice in preference for peer-generated information. They found that farmers regularly use online sources to access soil information and often changed practices based on information from social media. Results from their survey suggested that farmers placed more trust in other farmers and peer networks rather than traditional ‘experts’, particularly those from academic and government institutions, who they believed were not empathetic with the farmers’ needs.

This could be further compounded by many farmers deciding not to engage with advisory services at all. Dunne et al. (2019) found that almost one-third of farmers in Ireland were not using extension services and a further third had contracts with private sector and public sector advisors.

Research from the James Hutton Institute (Hopkins et al. 2020) also found that new entrants to farming are less likely to engage with subsidies and support systems than existing farmers in the sector. In particular, new entrants did not think that the ‘official’ Farm Advisory Service (FAS) and the Scottish Government were helpful when starting their enterprise. This finding is mirrored by Labarthe et al. (2022), who suggest that new entrants to agriculture are often disconnected from knowledge structures, as they often operate businesses that are not typically addressed by advisory services. Other ‘hard to reach’ or less engaged groups can include women farmers and those suffering from poor mental health (Hurley et al. 2022).

Understanding how land managers engage with knowledge networks and their trust of these networks is an important factor in determining their experience of support systems. By improving farmers’ awareness, it is expected that changes in behaviour would be reflected in the adoption of improved management practices. However, Okumah et al. (2021) argue that the limited research in this area so far has shown that the link between awareness and adoption exists. This link is indirect and is mediated and moderated by other factors. Nevertheless, on balance, it seems that hypothetically, with all factors being equal, more awareness is better than less awareness.

Summary

The willingness of land managers to engage with forms of support for changing management practices and land use patterns is influenced by a number of internal factors. These include the compatibility of change with land managers’ self-identify of what it means to be a land manager, particularly a farmer – something that is ingrained and often inter-generational, making it difficult to alter in the short-term. Similarly, inflexible management prescriptions are at odds with cherished decision-making autonomy and change can be perceived as incurring higher than acceptable levels of risk, although attitudes can be softened if prescriptions align with personal or business objectives.

Weak confidence and understanding regarding the purpose and practicalities of change reinforce business-as-usual, with a lack of trust in the credibility and relevance of available sources of information, advice and training further constraining engagement. Such internal factors vary across individual land managers, but there is some evidence that greater openness to change may be associated with (younger) age and (greater) education but also that some groups, including women, new entrants with no prior experience and people suffering from poor mental health, may be further disconnected from support systems.

External factors influencing land manager engagement with support schemes

Alongside the internal factors identified above, there are significant external factors that influence land manager behaviours, including the physical, environmental, business structure, financial, knowledge availability, social norms and time factors on land management.

Funding, costs and policy indicators

As with any business operation, the need to generate revenue to ensure the survival of the business is a high priority for any land manager. The majority of land managers, especially tenants, seek to make a profit from their land. Therefore, financial considerations are paramount to the landowners’ decision-making process, underlining the importance of support schemes and their potential to influence change.

Previous research has indicated that given the unpredictability of agricultural and land-based activities, only when economic conditions were stable could land managers focus on other activities – including environmental considerations (Scottish Government, 2012). Measures that do not guarantee financial benefits – e.g., that may have a negative impact on production or come at a cost to the farmer – are unlikely to be adopted in the absence of other tangible benefits.

In the latest Farm Practices Survey (2022), 32% of farmers who were already taking actions to reduce GHG emissions stated that environmental measures were too expensive to implement. This may explain why Ruto and Garrod (2009) found payment rates to be a key driver and Pineiro et al. (2021) conclude that interventions that lead to short term financial benefits have higher adoption rates than those that concentrate on delivering ecological service provision. This view is supported by Mills et al. (2016) who state that current financial incentives and regulatory approaches have had a degree of success in encouraging environmental practices, but these are ultimately transient drivers that have not led to long-term sustainability.

Within this, policy uncertainty may further hinder the uptake of environmental land management practices. Kuhfuss et al. (2018) describe these uncertainties as:

• differences in sources in funding (public vs private)
• eligibility rules
• financial uncertainty of prices in the carbon markets and
• potential emerging markets that may provide better results.

This is further compounded by whether a payment by results or an activity model is used. Moxey at al. (2021) reinforce this point by suggesting that peatland restoration work is hindered by the perceived ineligibility for agricultural support payments, tax breaks and concerns over future support arrangement and carbon market fluctuations.

Bio-physical constraints, tenure and structure

Environmental constraints often limit which environmental measures can be implemented on a spatial scale. Location, climate and environmental quality are key determinants of which support schemes are viable for a land manager’s piece of land as they affect what is implementable practically in local conditions in relation to opportunities. An example of this is the large amount of peatland and moorland that provides potential for peat bog restoration management practices: in these locations woodland planting should be discouraged (Lampkin et al. 2021). Paulus et al. (2022) provide further evidence to support this point by suggesting that environmental management practices are more likely to be implemented on sites with unfavourable agricultural conditions.

Two more important factors are the size of the enterprise and the tenure of the land. Regarding tenure, a meta-analysis of 46 studies (Baumgart-Getz et al. 2012) looking at the adoption of best-management practices found secure tenure to be a positive indicator of adoption, and the findings are likely to apply to climate friendly measures as well. This suggests that land managers who either own their land or are on secure tenancies with a good relationship with their landlord are more likely to adopt environmental measures due to the long-term security that their tenure status affords them.

Multiple sources within the literature also suggest that larger enterprises may be more willing and able to engage with support systems, particularly those with environmental outcomes (Mills et al. 2013; Paulus et al. 2022). Smaller enterprises are likely to have fewer opportunities to take elements out of production and fewer resources to apply without impacting their net income.

Ease of access to support

A key determinant of engagement with support systems is the perceived and actual accessibility of these schemes.

If a scheme is considered to be straightforward and easy to apply for, there is likely to be high engagement. The opposite is true of a scheme that is considered complex and time consuming. For example, for land managers the administrative load (transaction costs) and time commitment is often the determining factor on whether to participate or not. A common criticism of AESs is that they often carry high transaction costs, especially in comparison to more traditional support schemes (Kuhfuss et al. 2018).

Lampkin et al. (2021) suggest that schemes have become increasingly complex, partially in response to regulatory, audit and compliance issues. The administrative burden can also vary across enterprise type, with Benni et al. (2022) finding that dairy producers face substantially higher transaction costs than arable producers. Furthermore, once schemes are in place, the ongoing maintenance requirement for many AES (reporting etc.) can prove a further barrier to uptake (MacKay & Prager, 2021).

The Peatland Code can be used to understand some of the accessibility issues found in the Scottish agricultural sector. Moxey et al. (2021) suggest that the administrative burden associated with applying for joint funding via AESs and via the Peatland Code is perceived as overly complex, with interactions between them further increasing this. The study notes that the issue of interacting schemes occurs when having to demonstrate additionality, aligning funding cycles between different sources and coordinating across multiple land managers and investors.

Novo et al. (2021) also found that challenges in understanding the application process and funding mechanism were a barrier mentioned by interviewees in their study regarding the peatland carbon code.

Therefore, the perceived and actual transaction costs associated with support systems are a barrier to uptake. When looking to address this, Westway et al. (2023) caution that simplicity is important to encourage uptake, however oversimplification of schemes can lead to unintended consequences and needs to be balanced against public accountability for expenditure.

Knowledge availability, sharing and awareness

Engagement with support schemes and uptake of specific on farm measures is frequently linked with the knowledge and understanding of the individual land manager (Toma et al. 2018).

A lack of knowledge and understanding has been frequently cited as a key barrier to new management practices. This is further enhanced when new technological and informational processes are needed for alternative practices and if the costs/benefits are not clear or easy to judge. This finding is supported by results from the Farm Practitioner Survey (2022), where the most reported reason for not taking action was being unsure on what to do due to too many conflicting views (44%). These informational barriers are important as 30% responded that a lack of information was another key reason for not taking action.

This sentiment is echoed by two specific examples in Scotland. Firstly, Moxey et al. (2021) found that the awareness of the need for and benefits of peatland restoration is generally not well known amongst land managers, along with the voluntary market of the Peatland Code. Secondly, Lozada & Karley (2022) suggest that more evidence and greater awareness are needed amongst land managers about the financial and social outcomes of agroecological practices to facilitate uptake.

There is also evidence that land managers have a difference in ability to adopt new practices due to a variance in resources. Larger scale land management operations may have more resources and the ability to bring in consultants and agents for any new opportunities and land management practices. This is in comparison to smaller scale land managers who may not be able to approach new opportunities in the same manner due to (e.g.) a lack of time and cash plus higher overhead and transaction costs and less scope to cope with risk.

As an example, it has been suggested that small scale agroecological farmers might disproportionately suffer from a lack of access to incentives, despite delivering to environmental policy targets, or see incentive schemes as contrary to their farming ethos (Lozada & Karley 2022). This involves access to specialist advisors, where more profitable enterprises will be able to access specific advice on a more frequent basis compared to less profitable enterprises.

Social norms

As seen in section 4.2 above, farmers do not always make rational economic decisions and are influenced by societal goals and norms (Mills et al. 2017), the influence of a land manager’s peer group is likely to determine the extent to which they engage with specific support systems and management practices. This is observed in multiple studies (Kuhfuss et al. 2016: Cullen et al. 2020; Cusworth, 2020) where peer behaviour has been deemed to influence land manager uptake of environmental practices to a varying degree through framing of what it means to be a ‘good farmer’.

Howley et al. (2021) suggest that social norms can be harnessed to encourage pro-environmental behaviours in land managers. The researchers found that providing farmers with an opportunity to demonstrate their “green credentials” to their peer group can encourage conservation practices.

Summary

The ability of land managers to engage with changing management practices and land use patterns is influenced by a number of external factors. At a practical level, biophysical characteristics, and the area of land available will determine the suitability of alternative practices and land uses, but also the scope for experimentation and risk management. Equally, tenancy restrictions may impose legal constraints on freedom to change.

As businesses, the financial consequences of making changes matters. Funding needs to cover actual cash costs but also opportunity costs (time, income forgone) and transaction costs. The latter arise from application and reporting processes, both for funding and/or non-funding support, and can be disproportionately burdensome for smaller land managers. Separately, access to support can vary in terms of eligibility but also the availability of information, advice and training. Importantly, internal factors such as social norms and peer group pressure strongly influence land managers’ self-identity. This affects their perception of whether different management practices and land use patterns are compatible with their own values.

Discussion guide

The findings from the literature review suggested that we should focus on three main themes when we were drilling into the details with key stakeholders:

• identify the main determinants of ability and willingness to change land use and land management practices, to give us a clearer understanding of the key factors that influence land manager decision making, including their motivations, what they want to achieve for their business or organisation, and their appetite to change.
• focus on the existing support systems that land managers are engaging with and their experiences of doing so. This allowed us to identify and map all existing and relevant land use information systems, support services and the current incentives for land use transformation directly related to achieving Net Zero and/or nature restoration and understand some of the key barriers/opportunities regarding land manager engagement with these systems.
• explore how land managers are accessing these support systems, which allowed us to explore where, when and how the land managers interact with the systems and services.

The interview methodology and more detail on the interview questions can be found in Appendix C, and the findings are summarised above in section 5.

SWOT & PESTLE analysis

This section provides the details of a SWOT and PESTLE analysis on the current land manager support systems in Scotland and were informed by the literature review and stakeholder engagement exercises.

8.1 SWOT analysis

8.2 PESTLE analysis

Conclusions

Our research has reinforced existing findings in the literature surrounding land manager behaviour and decision making. Reflecting its relative prominence within public expenditure and land-based businesses in rural areas, agriculture dominates much of published literature on land use support and this was supplemented by stakeholder interviews, including with individuals representing other sectors.

The key message is that land manager engagement with support systems is determined by a range of interacting internal and external factors. These relate to financial, practical and cultural influences on both willingness and ability to engage. This is supported by the following conclusions:

• The administrative systems associated with land use support in Scotland are perceived as logical from a high-level perspective. Most interactions with the system are through the RPID portal, which only requires one set of login credentials to access a wide range of support systems. Those support systems not under this umbrella are easy to access.
• However, the administrative burden associated with applying to these schemes, i.e. form filling, is the main barrier to engagement. Some land managers have more resources available to absorb this administrative burden, such as large estates, investment owners and rewilding estates. If several schemes are appropriate this burden will increase.
• Procedural support (i.e. form filling by an advisor on behalf of a land manager) is widely available from both public (FAS, SAC) and private advisory sources. However, this is distinct from practical support, such as site-specific implementation advice, which was frequently mentioned by stakeholders as key to facilitating the uptake of environmental management practices, and yet less readily available, and can depend on location.
• We found that land managers often decide whether to engage with support and advice based on the credence of its source. For example, farmers are more likely to trust advisers/organisations that have a background in practical farming over those from a consulting/academic background.
• Another key determinant of engagement with support systems was the level of control associated with outcomes/management practices. Stakeholders mentioned that the perceived prescriptive nature of AECS and forestry related grants would prevent land managers from choosing to access these support services.
• Land managers in Scotland primarily access public funding support, with some accessing private finance to supplement their income or achieve specific goals. For those accessing private finance, this is generally done to avoid the conditionality of public funding support and retain operational control over the management of their land.
• A lack of knowledge and understanding has been frequently cited as a key barrier to new management practices. This is further enhanced when new technological and informational processes are needed for alternative practices and if the costs/benefits are not clear or easy to judge.

Going forwards, administrative simplicity is preferable to complexity and (for applicants) greater flexibility is preferred. Therefore, efforts to streamline application and monitoring processes, reduce information burdens, widen application windows and vary contract lengths, are justifiable. However, accountability for public expenditure requires a degree of bureaucracy to ensure that funds are disbursed and used as intended, and simplicity and flexibility for applicants may impose additional complexity for administrators. Consequently, there are trade-offs, and the scope for improvements in process design alone will typically be limited.

As our literature findings highlight, administrative touch points and contractual constraints are only one influence on land manager behaviour. This implies that improved accessibility and flexibility will not by itself increase overall engagement with land use change. Other measures will also be needed such as attractive payment rates, sufficient technical advice, training and management flexibility.

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Appendices

Appendix A – Support system overview

As part of the desk-based research element of this report, we attempted to discover as many of the existing official support systems available to land managers in Scotland as possible. This included visiting Scottish Government resources, such as the Rural Payments and Services website^[7], along with an internet trawl through other resources – such as NatureScot’s summary of the Agri-Environment and Climate Scheme^[8]. We used this information to compile Table 5 below, giving a summary of all the available sources of support and an indication, where possible, of how land managers are engaging with this support system.

To help understand how land managers are engaging with support systems, we identified and defined the key support system providers. These are outlined below:

Government – publicly funded support systems. These can come in the form of general funding support schemes (such as BPS) or more targeted schemes with environmental objectives (AECS). Government funding also underpins other forms of support, such as the Farm Advisory Service. Generic, rather than agricultural-specific business funding is also available from local and central government, but is generally regarded as less relevant to land managers.

Private sector – Land managers routinely access private sector funding in the form of overdrafts and loans offered by banks, plus calling upon personal networks (friends and family). Other sources of short-term credit include auction markets and input suppliers. More novel funding sources such as crowdfunding and impact bonds have emerged in recent years, as have voluntary carbon markets e.g. the Woodland Carbon Code and the Peatland Code.

Knowledge networks and advisory services – Land managers draw on a range of informational support when making decisions. This includes direct government sources plus third-party sources funded by government (e.g. the Farm Advisory Service) but also independent third-party provision. The latter includes advisory services tied to input suppliers as well as independent consultants but also, importantly, less formal reliance upon friends and family plus peer-to-peer networks.

Third sector, charities and NGOS – Certain groups with defined goals, such as nature protection and restoration, also provide landowners with advice and funding to undertake measures that align with their objectives. These groups are often landowners themselves.

Table 5: Support scheme overview

Appendix B – Archetype methodology

Archetype identification

The first priority was to define a baseline list of Scottish land manager archetypes^[16] in discussion with the project steering group.

Archetypes are a useful tool when trying to simplify the heterogeneity of land managers in Scotland and provide context to the following sections of analysis. The simplified archetypes were then used to underpin the mapping elements of this study. Firstly, archetypes were used to provide a high-level overview of how different land managers are engaging with support systems in Scotland. Secondly, the archetypes were used to identify potential climate change mitigation project providers in Table 6 below. Thirdly, archetypes were discussed with participants at the stakeholder workshop to explore the extent to which each archetype is interacting with support systems in the manner to which is expected based on stakeholder interviews and our literature review.

The following archetypes have been informed by Mills et al. (2017) (see Figure 1) where three main factors are defined that influence a land manager’s willingness and ability to undertake environmental management.

These are listed below:

• Willingness to adopt – willingness of land managers to undertake environmental land management practices and the intrinsic factors (e.g., motivations, beliefs, social norms) affecting land managers environmental behaviours.
• Farmer Engagement – where land managers enter into dialogue, discussion and collective problem framing with those who hold environmental knowledge and expertise.
• Ability to adopt – farm characteristics (e.g., tenancy, scale, skills and capital constraints), that influence land manager’s decision making in relation to environmental management and their ability to adopt new practices.

Mills et al. (2017) found that land managers tend to exhibit different sub-optimal positions within this conceptual framework. These positions are found below:

• Willing and engaged only – willingness to undertake environmental management activities on their land, but this has not translated into behaviour because the manager does not have the ability to do so.
• Able and engaged only – undertaking environmental management and has engaged with advice, but lacks sustained motivation to maximise environmental benefits.
• Willing and able only – actively undertaking environmental management, but has not engaged with any advice which means that land is not delivering its full environmental potential.
• Disengaged – not engaged with any environmental management, either because they were not willing, they do not have capacity, or they dislike outside interference or are concerned with loss of control or management flexibility.

Some characteristics are more readily observable than others. For example, farm type, size and tenure status are recorded routinely, levels of financial, human and social capital or personal attitudes less so. Nevertheless, it is possible to construct example archetypes that can be used to explore how different configurations may affect land use decisions.^[17] The Table on the following page is an attempt to illustrate a broad range of potential land manager archetypes in Scotland. This has been arranged primarily based on activity, as this is the most observable difference between land manager types. We have provided a hypothesis of the likely size, tenure and engagement along with a brief description of key characteristics and indication of location. Words in bold indicate that this characteristic applies to the archetype.

In further developing these archetypes, we hypothesized additional influences on ability and willingness to change land management/use:

• Tenure restrictions (particularly short-term leases and crofting tenure, notably common grazing) constrain automatic freedom to change (and reap rewards);
• Small scale incurs proportionally higher transaction (e.g., application) costs, although transaction costs also deter larger land managers. Small scale also constrains availability of labour/capital/land to make changes.
• Availability of advisers (particularly for non-traditional topics) perceived as credible and relevant is limited, especially/ in remoter areas.
• General lack of policy certainty also deters change.
• Biophysical conditions constrain land use options.
• Financial circumstances constrain ability to change – but also affect relative importance (leverage) of public funds e.g., market revenues and/or non-land income may matter more, making some land managers less responsive to policy (i.e., opportunity cost vary) even if public funding is generous.
• All of the previous influences are mediated through cultural identities, social norms and personal motivations – willingness to change will vary within any given category of activity, size, tenure, region, biophysical circumstances and financial circumstances.

Archetype table

Table 6 – Archetypes

*Priority – this column indicates that this archetype was identified as a priority for this research project by the steering group.

Appendix C – Interview methodology

Interview methodology for land use support

A Discussion Guide (see below) for semi-structured interviews was developed and a list of target candidate interviewees was also drawn-up and agreed. Candidate interviewees were chosen to represent recipients of support, providers of information and advice, and academic experts.

Semi-structured interviews were arranged in advance by email and conducted mostly by video conferencing with some conducted by mobile phone. Interviews lasted 25 to 85 minutes and occurred between 17^th June and 3^rd August 2023. Overall, 25 interviews were conducted with 28 interviewees (plus one by email only). The list of interviewees is shown in the table below.

Written notes were taken during interviews, and subsequently converted into reflective summaries immediately afterwards to capture key insights. The use of formal thematic coding and software analysis was not deployed and, to protect commercial confidentialities, no quotes have been attributed to individual interviewees.

Table 7 – Interviewee’s organisation

As with all efforts to canvass opinion from industry stakeholders, the approach taken was limited by the resources and time available to conduct interviews – further interviews might have produced additional insights. Moreover, it is possible that the profile of interviewees or selective answering of questions by them could bias reported findings. However, there was a high degree of consistency across interviews (and with the literature) in terms of the issues identified, implying that participation was in good faith.

Discussion guide

• What factors influence land managers’ ability to adopt new management practices and/or land uses?
• What factors influence land managers’ willingness to adopt new management practices and/or land uses?
• What types of support are required? What determines engagement with them?
• What sources of support are available? Any pros and cons for different sources?
• What mode of (non-funding) support are available? Any pros and cons for different modes?
• What affects the availability, accessibility and credibility of (non-funding) support?

Appendix D – Literature review methodology

We undertook a focused literature review to identify existing policy and research relating to existing support systems in the agricultural industry in Scotland. In order to conduct a robust, rapid evidence review, key search terms were agreed with the steering group. Search terms were applied to both academic search functions and generic search providers. This ensured a wide range of academic and grey literature was captured. Search terms can be found below in Table 8.

Table 8 – Search terms

Key  

Words in bold are the truncated search term, with the phrases following added onto the stem to broaden the use of the stem word.  Where (Scotland, UK) is indicated, these terms will be added to the end of each search term in that group. 

© The University of Edinburgh, 2024
Prepared by LUC on behalf of ClimateXChange, The University of Edinburgh. All rights reserved.

While every effort is made to ensure the information in this report is accurate, no legal responsibility is accepted for any errors, omissions or misleading statements. The views expressed represent those of the author(s), and do not necessarily represent those of the host institutions or funders.

1. 
   

   Scottish Greenhouse Gas Statistics 2021. Accessed 15/02/2024 ↑

   
   
2. 
   

   The level of detail offered by stakeholders regarding specific public funding schemes varied, but most suggested that agri-environmental type schemes were more complex to enrol in. ↑

   
   
3. 
   

   Although in practice there may be some overlap since funding may be made available to facilitate interaction with other forms of support. For example, grants to attend training sessions. ↑

   
   
4. 
   

   i.e. one advisor to one land manager or one advisor to many land managers ↑

   
   
5. 
   

   The Pareto principle (also known as the 80/20 rule) states that roughly 80% of outcomes come from 20% of input effort. ↑

   
   
6. 
   

   For example, the AIC estimates that its members deploy c.125 staff in Scotland under Feed Adviser Register (FAR) system, which compares with c.140 FBBASS accredited advisers. ↑

   
   
7. 
   

   https://www.ruralpayments.org/ ↑

   
   
8. 
   

   https://www.nature.scot/doc/scotlands-agri-environment-and-climate-scheme-summary ↑

   
   
9. 
   

   Financial support is normally accompanied by at least the provision of information but sometimes also more interactive advice. ↑

   
   
10. 
    

    https://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20220804182342/https://www.gov.scot/publications/dairy-sector-climate-change-group-report-2/documents/ ↑

    
    
11. 
    

    https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/independent-report/2021/06/blueprint-sustainable-integrated-farming-crofting-activity-hills-uplands-scotland/documents/hill-upland-crofting-group/hill-upland-crofting-group/govscot%3Adocument/hill-upland-crofting-group.pdf ↑

    
    
12. 
    

    https://www.hutton.ac.uk/sites/default/files/files/WCC%20Poster%20Website.pdf ↑

    
    
13. 
    

    https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/corporate-report/2016/12/mackinnon-report/documents/analysis-current-arrangements-consideration-approval-forestry-planting-proposals-pdf/analysis-current-arrangements-consideration-approval-forestry-planting-proposals-pdf/govscot%3Adocument/Analysis%2Bof%2Bcurrent%2Barrangements%2Bfor%2Bthe%2Bconsideration%2Band%2Bapproval%2Bof%2Bforestry%2Bplanting%2Bproposals.pdf ↑

    
    
14. 
    

    https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/research-and-analysis/2021/03/scottish-land-fund-evaluation/documents/scottish-land-fund-evaluation/scottish-land-fund-evaluation/govscot%3Adocument/scottish-land-fund-evaluation.pdf ↑

    
    
15. 
    

    https://www.fas.scot/publication-type/ktif-reports/ ↑

    
    
16. 
    

    a very typical example of a certain person or thing. ↑

    
    
17. 
    

    e.g.: Mustin, K., Newey, S. and Slee, B., 2017. Towards the construction of a typology of management models of shooting opportunities in Scotland. Scottish Geographical Journal, 133(3-4), pp.214-232.; Sutherland, L-A., Barlagne, C. and Barnes, A.P. 2019 Beyond ‘hobby farming’: towards a typology of non-commercial farming; Barnes, AP; Thompson, B; Toma, L. 2022 Finding the ecological farmer: a farmer typology to understand ecological practices within Europe. ↑

    
    

Completed in September 2024

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7488/era/5006

Executive summary

Purpose

Collaborative landscape management is the enhancement of ecosystems via combined efforts of multiple farmers and land managers across a landscape. It has potential to help meet Scottish Government targets associated with addressing biodiversity loss and climate change.

This research, commissioned by Scottish Government, investigated a variety of models and experiences of collaboration to explore how support for collaborative landscape management in Scotland could be provided. This can help inform how such support may be incorporated in the Agricultural Reform Programme and other relevant policy areas.

Key findings

Overall, stakeholders were keen to see that we build on what exists already, rather than reinventing the wheel.

Relevant examples of collaboration in Scotland:

• Facility for Investment Ready Nature in Scotland (FIRNS)
• Deer Management Groups
• Tweed Forum
• Working for Waders (led by the RSPB)
• Findhorn Watershed Initiative

The English farmer cluster model is also considered successful in bringing farmers together and initiating and planning for collaborative activities. This is beginning to be replicated in Scotland, for instance in Strathmore, Moray, Lunan Burn and West Loch Ness, mainly supported by the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust.

International examples:

• Landscape Enterprise Networks (efforts are underway to develop LENs in Leven and elsewhere in Scotland).
• The FASB initiative in Brazil
• The Cevennes National Park in France
• The EU Interreg Partridge project

Success factors, required support and opportunities

Informed by the main success factors in these examples, as well as their own knowledge and experience, stakeholders identified the following support needs:

• Facilitation to bring groups together and enable planning, preparation for and implementation of collaborative landscape management approaches. This includes long-term funding and training for facilitators. This could be provided through a mechanism akin to the Countryside Stewardship Facilitation Fund delivered in England by DEFRA, or expanding the Farm Advisory Service.
• Long-term funding dedicated to incentivising and supporting implementation of collaborative activities. This could include investing in existing collaborative structures, such as farmer clusters, Regional Land Use Partnerships, Landscape Enterprise Networks and Deer Management Groups. Greater accessibility and flexibility of funding are needed to encourage engagement in collaborative landscape management.
• Encouraging private sector investment to incentivise engagement in collaborative landscape management and enable greater flexibility for context-specific, bespoke projects. This could be encouraged by increasing the scale of FIRNS and completing development of NatureScot’s Landscape Scale Natural Capital Tool. The Scottish Government could also actively broker direct connections between farmers and private-sector organisations.
• Training, conferences and knowledge sharing to foster a culture of collaboration.
• Monitoring, evaluation and communication about the benefits of collaborative landscape management approaches. For example, through building on data such as NatureScot’s Ecological Surveys and Natural Capital Tool, as well as community science approaches.
• Coordinated support for collaboration, both across government policies and between government and other stakeholders. Collaboration may be incentivised by increasing support points in the Agri-Environment Climate Scheme and Nature Restoration Fund.

Gaps and opportunities for future research and innovation

We have found tensions between stakeholders’ preferences for greater incentives and the importance of regulation, as well as between simplicity and flexibility of support mechanisms. Private sector involvement may incentivise flexible collaboration. However, approaches that ensure private-sector-led nature restoration initiatives remain responsible and accountable, whilst making favourable returns on investment, need to be explored.

Glossary / Abbreviations table

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all the stakeholders who participated in this study, Antonia Boyce for review and project management support, and Alhassan Ibrahim for review.

Introduction

Context

It is widely acknowledged that transformative change is needed to address biodiversity loss and climate change at pace and at scale. The Scottish Government has therefore set ambitious targets to meet ‘Net Zero’ by 2045 and proposed nature restoration targets for the same period, for inclusion in a Natural Environment Bill. Meeting these targets will require collaboration across the boundaries of individual farms and land holdings, to match land management to the scale of habitats, catchments, and landscapes.

Defining collaborative landscape management

Various definitions of collaborative landscape management exist. For the purpose of this report, we use the definition: enhancement of ecosystems via the combined efforts of multiple farmers and land managers across a landscape (Westerink et al., 2017). Academic literature indicates such approaches can enable positive outcomes for nature and climate change (Kuhfuss et al., 2019), increasing information flows and learning (Prager and Creaney, 2017), as well as reducing the likelihood of conflicting or duplicate efforts by neighbours (Westerink et al., 2017). In so doing, they may offer better value for public money.

However, it cannot be assumed that farmers and land managers are able and willing to collaborate across a landscape. Collaboration requires time and effort. Support mechanisms such as agri-environment schemes have historically been directed at the level of individual farms, rather than at the landscape scale. Scottish Government are therefore keen to understand more about how to create a supportive policy environment for collaborative land management practices.

Existing research on collaboration between farmers indicates that it often depends on long-term relationships and knowledge-sharing, supported by facilitators (Kuhfuss et al., 2019). Where farmer groups already exist, their facilitators are known to be a key influence on farmers’ learning (Prager and Creaney, 2017). The importance of facilitators is also true for other types of landscape-scale collaborations (Waylen et al., 2023). This is especially relevant as other types of landscape-scale partnerships also exist in Scotland, such as Rural Land Use Partnerships (RLUPs), Deer Management Groups (DMGs), and voluntary catchment management partnerships. Ongoing research on collaborative management interventions (JHI-D4-1^[1]), in the Scottish Government’s Strategic Research Programme also emphasises the importance of peer-to-peer learning and building on social capital.

There are therefore a variety of models and experiences of collaboration, from which lessons may be drawn. To enable collaborative landscape management for conservation and climate change outcomes, it is therefore important to identify what existing networks and institutions can be built on and how. This will help to establish what approach(es) for supporting collaborative landscape management will be most worthwhile, and feasible, to include in the future agricultural support framework and other policy developments. To assist in understanding how collaborative landscape management can best be supported, the Scottish Government commissioned this CXC study, in which we built on key concepts and insights from the academic literature and explored this issue with key expert stakeholders in Scotland.

Aim

This study engaged with agricultural and conservation stakeholders (including farmers, land managers, conservationists, and academic experts), in Scotland. We explored their expert opinions regarding how collaborative landscape management can be supported to deliver positive outcomes for climate and nature in Scotland. Specifically, we addressed the following research questions:

1. What examples of effective support for collaborative landscape scale activities may be identified and what lessons may be learned from them?
2. What should support measures look like, to enable farmers and land-managers to engage in collaborative landscape management? What are their relative advantages and disadvantages? How might they enrich and elaborate on existing approaches?
3. What are the barriers and opportunities for uptake of collaborative landscape management?
4. What benefits can collaborative approaches achieve, and how may they be monitored and evaluated?

The research involved stakeholder engagement through an online survey and in-person workshop, both conducted in June 2024. The methodology is explained in Appendix A.

Stakeholders’ experiences of collaborative landscape management

Stakeholders were keen to emphasise the importance of building on what exists already, rather than ‘reinventing the wheel’. This section therefore identifies existing examples of collaborative landscape management and draws lessons from them in terms of what is working well and what is challenging.

Examples of success

Stakeholders identified a range of examples of collaborative landscape approaches that they perceived as successful, within Scotland, across the UK, and internationally. Existing examples in Scotland included the following:

• The Facility for Investment Ready Nature in Scotland (FIRNS), delivered by NatureScot in collaboration with the Scottish Government. FIRNS is currently supporting 29 projects to improve their readiness to attract private sector investment. FIRNS is also stimulating flows of information and relationship-building via its ‘Community of Practice’ forum.
• The Deer Management Groups are helping to pool information about landscape-scale biodiversity and are encouraging collaboration by bringing people together to work on a common issue (deer management). Groups are entirely different in composition but all work at landscape scale. Initially, this was primarily to manage a single resource (deer), but over the last ten years there has been a shift towards landscape planning in the public interest, including peatland restoration, woodlands and communities. These collaborative mechanisms have been well established but are currently facing a lack of funding for continuation of this work.
• The Tweed Forum are carrying out a great amount of work around river management through building trust among different stakeholders, to engage them in landscape-scale nature restoration. They have successfully improved water quality at the catchment scale, via a collaborative approach.
• The Working for Waders initiative in Strathspey is an example of an environmental NGO funded landscape scale project. It involves a range of different stakeholders, including farmers and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), to protect and restore habitat for waders in Scotland.
• The ‘Findhorn Watershed Initiative’ have achieved success in winning Just Transition funding to support building partnerships among different stakeholders for collaborative landscape management approaches. This funding allows for not just the restoration work but also building social capital and socio-economic aspects.
• The Dee Invasive Non-Native Species Project (DINNs) has a lot of farmers working collaboratively and has good examples of large-scale projects that have achieved funding with relative ease. They were described as ‘doing what they say on the tin’ within their work, one example being bringing people together to collaborate on the removal of Himalayan Balsam (an invasive plant species) in their landscape.
• The Cairngorms Nature Index (CNI), built on an example from The Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA), collects data around health of habitats, species and ecosystems and attempts to put it into a standardised format that people can draw on. This has potential to inform clusters in the areas, however this link is not currently there.

The main example from England, which stakeholders spoke highly of, was farmer clusters:

• Farmer clusters are showing success in bringing farmers together and initiating and planning for collaborative activities. This is especially the case where they receive support from the Countryside Stewardship Facilitation Fund (CSFF) delivered by DEFRA. The CSFF supports the time and resources needed for facilitators to arrange meetings, create opportunities for information sharing and conduct administrative tasks. Specific examples that participants mentioned, included the North East Cotswold Farmer Cluster and the Selborne Landscape Partnership.

A wide range of international examples of collaborative landscape management were cited. The full list is included in Appendix B. Some key examples included:

• Landscape Enterprise Networks are helping to build networks of farmers and land managers in multiple countries.
• The FASB initiative in Brazil is supporting local-level nature restoration initiatives by creating collaborative working groups, facilitating peer-to-peer learning, and supporting existing local-level initiatives.
• The Cevennes National Park in France is achieving strong engagement from landowners, by working hand-in-hand with them.
• The EU Interreg Partridge project was considered successful in ensuring consistency for managing species across landscapes.
• The Netherlands is generally considered to have a strong culture of collaboration among farmers. Indeed, collaboration is compulsory for some types of agricultural support.

What is working well?

We draw the following lessons from the above examples of success, regarding what is working well in supporting collaborative landscape management.

Facilitation

The examples of success emphasise the importance of providing a forum for groups of farmers, land managers and other stakeholders to come together in the first place, share ideas, plan and build trusting relationships. One survey respondent emphasised the importance of leadership and building trust: “…a note about how important it is to have trusted people in the area you’re working in, well respected. Leadership and trust is important.” Farmer clusters have been particularly successful in England for encouraging local collaboration between landowners. The perceived success of these English farmer clusters was largely attributed to the fact they can benefit from the CSFF, which supports the time and resources needed for facilitators to arrange meetings, create opportunities for information sharing and conduct administrative tasks. This can help bring farmers and land managers together, in the first place, to agree objectives and plan for long-term and evolving goals/projects to maintain engagement within the group.

Bespoke projects

Bringing groups of farmers and land managers together around a specific, common issue can be particularly effective, as this helps provide a clear reason and motivation for why collaborative landscape management is needed. If different farmers and land managers are able to relate with each other around challenges that they are facing, this can encourage strong relationships between them. The Tweed Forum was raised, by both conservation organisations and farmers, as an example of positive work being carried out around river management. It has focused on bringing local land managers and farmers together to tackle issues such as water quality and run-off. Their approach centres on strong leadership and trust building. Similarly, the Riverwoods project was mentioned as a successful network working towards creation of riverbank woodlands and healthy river systems across Scotland. The Deer Management Groups described themselves as a particular example of a bespoke arrangement, in that they bring people together to work on the specific issue of deer management. “… we represent 50 deer management groups which cover something like 3 million hectares of the uplands, the groups are entirely different in composition but all of them working at landscape scale, initially to manage a resource, which was deer”. Other examples that focused on management of a particular issue included management of beavers, management of habitats for partridge in the EU Interreg project, and removal of Himalayan Balsam in the Dee catchment. A farmer representative used these examples to argue that one-size-fits-all approaches are not always appropriate. He thus emphasised the importance of tailoring collaborative landscape management to specific contexts.

Forums for sharing and learning

Forums for sharing knowledge and experience were considered factors for success in several of the examples above. Such forums can help communicate the benefits of collaborative landscape management, as well as enable learning that could help others to achieve these benefits elsewhere. The FIRNS ‘Community of Practice’ was considered a useful forum by many stakeholders. This focuses on ensuring farmers, land managers and other stakeholders are informed and able to engage in, and see benefits from, environmental markets and private investment in natural capital. For instance, a representative from Bioregioning Tayside suggested that the “community of practice model has been very effective across Scotland and a smaller ‘sister’ fund to FIRNS would be helpful”. A Leven LENS representative stressed that whilst the term ‘communities of practice’ has become a slight buzzword, communities of practice are really important for building channels of communication. Examples of other successful forums included ‘study tours’ (in which farmers visit others in another location to share knowledge and learning), the CSFF conference in England, and the Farm Advisory Service (FAS), which helps farmers to stay informed of new initiatives as they come onstream.

Integrated support

Involving various stakeholder groups in supporting collaborative landscape management was also a factor in the success of the examples above. This includes involving stakeholders beyond just government and the agriculture sector. For instance, LENS are bringing private and public-sector organisations together to broker negotiations, and eventually transactions for organising the buying and selling of nature-based solutions. The Working with Waders project is achieving success in Strathspey, through funding from non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and collaboration between NGOs and farmers. Projects like this show that NGOs are willing to collaborate on and fund projects, and that involving a wide range of stakeholders can generally increase capacity for collaborative landscape management in Scotland.

What is challenging?

The catalogue of successful examples of collaborative landscape management signifies that there is a breadth of positive collaboration taking place, which may be learned from and built upon. However, stakeholders also highlighted significant challenges faced for promoting collaborative landscape management approaches, which are explained as follows.

Inadequate facilitation and limited culture of collaboration

Stakeholders perceived poor facilitation and poor communication as preventative to collaboration. For long-term collaboration to work, stakeholders considered the choice of facilitator and engagement methods as key, suggesting consultations cannot be the only engagement method moving forwards. Collaborative projects benefit from a trustworthy, engaging, non-biased and pragmatic facilitator, who regularly stays in touch with participants and is willing to adapt their facilitation method based on the group’s needs. In the workshop, stakeholders perceived that support for facilitation is currently limited, which limits the availability of skilled facilitators to effectively support collaborations.

Stakeholders acknowledged that there is not generally a culture of collaboration between different farmers and land managers, or between the different government and non-governmental sectors involved in supporting collaborative landscape management, due to a historical culture of competition. The current competitive culture results in situations where new approaches, data and technologies are being copyrighted for individual financial gain, rather than shared and used collaboratively with other farmers and landowners for common benefit. Stakeholders in the survey, suggested this can result in hesitancy to engage and trust in new processes, as well as lose out on the benefits of collaboration between different sectors and organisations. For example, the projects listed in Section 5.1 show that NGOs are willing to work with farmers to fund and support collaborative projects. However, they do not currently benefit from agricultural support, which could widen their impact.

Unsuitable funding mechanisms

Our findings revealed a perception, among stakeholders, that current agricultural support is not suitable for supporting collaborative landscape management. Stakeholders consider existing agricultural support, particularly Agri-Environment Climate Scheme (AECS) and Nature Restoration Fund payments, as complicated, restrictive and competitive. This was considered a challenge for engaging in any kind of positive management for biodiversity and the climate, including collaborative approaches. According to stakeholders, the process of acquiring funding has a tendency to be extremely complex and time consuming, with ineffective mechanisms for distributing or releasing funds in a timely manner. Stakeholders also indicated that there is a lack of legal and legislative knowledge amongst farmers and landowners, and this is limiting their ability to apply for funding. Applications for funding, therefore, require a huge amount of effort and monetary investment. Indeed, the costs of initiating collaborations and preparing applications for grants and incentives, were considered significant challenges for engaging in collaborative landscape management. For example, a representative from the Deer Management Groups cited the financial burden of simply preparing an application as a major disincentive for farmers to engage in collaborative landscape management.

Stakeholders considered the competitive nature of funding to exacerbate this, as there are significant costs involved in starting-up and applying for funding, but limited chance of success. Farmer representatives, in particular, agreed that when funding is competitive many farmers simply will not bother applying, as the high cost of applications, combined with the high risk of failure, simply makes it not worthwhile. Multiple stakeholders agreed this structure puts smaller farmers and land managers at a disadvantage and favours large landowners, who have sufficient time and resources for making applications and absorbing fines that could occur through mistakes.

Stakeholders also perceived that, with the exception of getting extra points for collaborative projects in AECS, there is currently a lack of funding designed specifically to support collaboration. Stakeholders expressed concerns that existing grant funding is short term in nature (e.g. for AECS is only a 5-year agreement), which does not lend itself to building collaborations or implementing long term changes at a landscape scale. Additionally, AECS funding is points-based, meaning farmers are in competition with each other to meet the points threshold. This was considered a disincentive to engaging in collaboration.

Existing mechanisms for supporting collaboration were also considered too restrictive, in terms of the types of landscape management options that could be funded. Stakeholders emphasised that a one-size-fits-all approach will never work, and policy support for collaborative landscape management must take this into account. A farmer representative highlighted the geographic differences across landscapes and catchments. He emphasised that even the top of a hill and the bottom of the hill can be very different, and different landowners will have different needs. This is true not just of the physical landscape but also in farming techniques, revenue, or funding streams. As one survey response stated: “Single outcome objectives can limit participation and success”.

Siloed and top-down governance

Stakeholders raised further challenges, related to the approach taken by government, that they thought were hindering support for collaborative landscape management. In the workshop, although farmer representatives stated that the Government has been very imaginative, and that successes should not be forgotten, they also highlighted shortcomings in the Government’s approach. Stakeholders expressed a sentiment that the Government have not listened to them enough, despite continually providing feedback. They perceived this top-down approach from government as perpetuating power imbalances that favour some views about land use and management, over others, and do not offer any real help for farmers.

There was also a feeling that current policy exists in a siloed system in which agriculture, forestry and biodiversity policy do not interact. This can result in complexity and contested interests between different siloes and thus reduce political will and ability to act in support of collaborative landscape management. Some stakeholders, such as a representative from Scottish Environment LINK in the workshop, thought that existing initiatives were “very messy at the government level”. He argued that there are too many different targets and proposed initiatives, which, at the level of implementation at the landscape scale: “no one knows how it is supposed to fit together”. Some agricultural stakeholders also suggested that policies such as the Wildlife Bill and the Land Reform Agenda actually discourage collaboration, because they encourage fragmentation of land ownership.

Limited evidence for the benefits of collaborative landscape management

Stakeholders highlighted that there is limited awareness of successful examples of collaborative landscape management projects and their impacts. They considered this a barrier to promoting favourable attitudes and motivations for collaborative landscape management approaches. It is not always possible to imagine something you have never seen, and positive examples are needed for farmers and land managers to understand the potential benefits of collaborative landscape management. For example, a representative from Bioregioning Tayside felt that a lack of awareness around existing solutions has led to a lack of comprehension around how land could be managed to help deal with extreme weather events. Some stakeholders also highlighted successful landscape collaboration projects along the River Spey and the River Dee, but stressed that their impacts are limited by a lack of communication and knowledge-sharing amongst one another.

Stakeholders’ needs and aspirations for collaborative landscape management

Stakeholders were forthcoming in suggesting the types of support that they thought would enable and enhance collaborative landscape management. This section discusses the types of support that were suggested, as well as potential opportunities that could be taken.

What types of support are needed?

Stakeholders suggested a range of support mechanisms that they thought would help to deliver positive outcomes for climate and nature in Scotland

Support for facilitation of collaboration

Stakeholders considered facilitation as essential for organising collaborative landscape management approaches. This was considered important by stakeholders from across the range of perspectives represented in both the workshop and the survey. When asked how important facilitation of collaboration was for collaborative landscape management, 17 of 20 survey respondents agreed it was essential, with the remaining 3 suggesting it was somewhat important, as shown in Figure 1.

Facilitators can help, practically, to bring farmers and land managers together, from across a landscape, and help them to form groups that engage in collaborative activities together. In the survey responses, farmers, in particular, emphasised the importance of facilitators engaging with individuals, not just in a group setting, providing opportunities for social interaction, and establishing the conditions under which groups of farmers would be willing to collaborate. Others emphasised the importance of facilitators for building trust and long-term relationships, and who listen to and understand local needs and aspirations. For instance, a representative of a conservation NGO, stated: “To enable the group to come together and get underway, there needs to be a person who is good at bringing the group together and keeping them together.”

Facilitators were considered useful for helping groups of farmers and land managers set clear goals and expectations, incorporating different individual goals and expectations. This was emphasised by another representative of a conservation NGO in the survey: “There needs to be clear objectives and purpose established from the start, so everyone is clear as to why they are collaborating and what outcomes are expected. There should be a clear project plan with clear timelines”. In the workshop, it was suggested that encouraging facilitators to develop formally constituted agreements with groups they work with, can help encourage those groups to take risks associated with collaboration.

Stakeholders also thought that facilitators can help build the capacity of groups to ‘get things done’. This includes helping farmers and land managers to collect data for assessing biodiversity on their land, and then preparing maps and models of collaborative projects and their intended effects. It also includes supporting applications for funding to support collaborative landscape management projects, by conveying information and guidance about funding schemes, and then ensuring applications are prepared correctly, and in a professional format (which one existing farmer cluster facilitator stressed as highly important when groups are first starting up).

Stakeholders recognised that effective facilitation requires skilled individuals and appropriate investment in their training, time and resources. Facilitators need a wide-ranging set of skills, including: project management, mapping, monitoring and evaluation, diplomacy to manage competing interests, awareness of funding schemes, experience of funding applications, a combined understanding of both agricultural economics and biodiversity, and an ability to draw information from across relevant sectors. Stakeholders therefore stressed that facilitators themselves need to be supported, through training, and funding to pay for their time, skills and training.

In the survey, we asked stakeholders how long they thought support for facilitation of collaborative landscape management projects should last. As shown in Figure 2, the highest proportion of respondents thought support for facilitation should last 2-5 years (n=7), and the second highest proportion thought support should last 5-10 years (n=5). This emphasises the value of long-term support for facilitation.

Funding to incentivise and implement collaborative activities

Perhaps unsurprisingly stakeholders, across the board, considered financial incentives and funding for implementation as imperative for supporting farmers and land managers to engage in collaborative landscape management activities. As noted in Section 5.3, stakeholders considered existing agricultural support schemes, such as Agri-Environment Climate Schemes (AECS) and Nature Restoration Fund (NRF) as currently unsuited for supporting collaboration. There was therefore a strong push for ‘holistic’ funding for landscape-scale collaboration that would cover support for the full range of different aspects involved in collaborative landscape management. This included:

• Start-up funding to help form groups in the first place.
• Capital funding to help groups acquire resources, such as machinery, and other materials needed to implement a collaborative project.
• Revenue funding for ongoing land management.
• Funding for tasks such as mapping and surveying biodiversity.
• Funding for administrative tasks such as writing and formatting applications.
• Funding for monitoring, evaluation and knowledge sharing.
• Funding for communications and publicity.

Farmers, especially, stressed financial incentives as the single most important support measure for encouraging collaborative landscape management. However, they suggested that it is essential for funding to align with farmers’ interests, rather than simply being lucrative. In the workshop, one cluster farmer stated, strongly: “the motivation to do the best for the environment is there, but the support is not coming. The government need to up their game and provide incentives. Farmers will go along, as long as they are paid, but we need help to do that”.

All stakeholders did recognise, however, that such holistic funding for collaborative landscape management would be expensive, and thus thought it would be challenging for public sector funding alone to provide this. In both the survey and the workshop, stakeholders showed interest in private sector investment as an alternative, or additional, source of funding for supporting collaborative landscape management. One advantage of this, that stakeholders identified, is that many businesses already have environmental targets and are ready and willing to invest in efforts to improve biodiversity and climate change outcomes. This may be for financial benefits (through nature finance), or to improve their reputation. Representatives from the Deer Management Groups and LENS explained that they are already working successfully with investment from private businesses, whilst several stakeholders cited FIRNS as an initiative that could help to build opportunities for private sector investment. One stakeholder, from Bioregioning Tayside, suggested that the government could encourage access to private sector funding by facilitating direct connections between groups of farmers and corporations with an interest in investing in them (such as large supermarkets). Another stakeholder, from a land agency cautioned about over-reliance on the private sector, noting that private sector investment is profit-driven and can make nature a marketable commodity.

The survey asked respondents to rank the importance of support for implementation of a collaborative landscape management project, shown in Figure 3. The highest proportion thought support should last 5-10 years (n=7) and the second highest proportion thought it should last for 2-5 years (n=6). This indicates the importance of medium-to-long-term support for collaborative landscape management projects to be successful.

Education and advocacy

Whilst there was universal agreement on the importance of financial incentives, in the workshop, several stakeholders noted the importance of creating longer-term changes in attitudes and behaviour. Some stakeholders suggested that farmers, land managers, and others whose businesses depend on land and agriculture, need to understand the potential benefits of collaborative approaches to nature restoration for their business models. For example, crop production benefits from the presence of pollinating insects, so there is an inherent benefit to crop farmers managing land to protect those insects at the landscape scale. One stakeholder even questioned whether farmers and land managers should receive payment in instances where biodiversity is good for their businesses. However, there was some disagreement with this, especially from farmers, who argued that they already have the knowledge and motivation for nature restoration, they just need the funding.

Increasing flows of knowledge, information and learning about the benefits of biodiversity emerged as an important incentive, in addition to funding. This was considered a potential opportunity to encourage longer-term changes in attitudes and motivations that would promote management of land for positive nature restoration and climate change outcomes. Such changes could reduce dependence on financial incentives for collaborative landscape management. This emphasises the importance of increasing the visibility of successful collaborative projects, including through communication between projects and increasing opportunities for advocacy and information sharing.

Collaborative culture

In the workshop, several stakeholders suggested ways in which a collaborative culture may be encouraged in Scotland. A farmer representative pointed to the French agricultural support system as a positive example of a collaboration being encouraged. There was also some discussion around the idea that collaboration could be made compulsory to ensure it happens. A farmer representative asserted that this could be necessary, because in cases where voluntary schemes for collaboration have ended, collaborative action has stopped, or even been reversed. Such a compulsory approach is taken in the Netherlands, where there is a long history of group/cluster development, apparently with some success. However, for a compulsory approach to be successful in Scotland, stakeholders thought there would be a need for major group development across farmers and land managers. The idea of a compulsory approach was also criticised by a land agent, who thought it would be politically undesirable to implement and enforce. A representative from Scottish Land and Estates suggested a culture of collaboration could be created through a compromise of points-based awards for collaboration within Tier 2 agricultural support payments and then making collaboration compulsory in Tier 3 support. This was contested by a conservation NGO, as points for collaboration already exist in AECS and the NRF. Nonetheless, these points systems could be increased in scale, to incentivise collaborative activities.

Simplicity and flexibility.

As explained in Section 5.3, there was a strong sentiment, across all of the participating stakeholders, that current support measures, such as AECS, are too complicated to effectively support collaborative landscape management. There is therefore huge demand for simplified application processes. As shown in Figure 4, 17 survey respondents considered the accessibility of application processes to be essential, whilst the remaining 3 considered it somewhat important.

Stakeholders also wanted to see greater flexibility, in terms of the types of landscape management options for biodiversity restoration that farmers can access support for. Stakeholders highlighted a need for different types of collaboration in different landscapes for different purposes, and a need for bespoke funding, information and facilitation to be tailored to different contexts. For example, one representative from Bioregioning Tayside called for measures that “allow for agency and different interpretations, depending on context.” Similarly, one member of a farmer cluster suggested a need for different measures, and different governance structures, for collaboration in different regions, citing an example from France, in which different regions are supported in different ways. Another cluster farmer contended that flexibility is needed within specific landscapes, not just across different regions, and suggested that support measures could be tailored to specific habitats. Specific options that stakeholders wanted to see funding for included: planting trees, using grasslands to sequester carbon, mixed livestock and forest farming, reducing fertiliser use, and adoption of hydrogen as a fuel.

There were also calls for flexibility in terms of allowing for the fact that mistakes might be made during the implementation of collaborative landscape management approaches. Farmers were keen not to be punished too harshly for this and thought greater lenience would help reduce the risk of them engaging in collaborative landscape management. This was considered especially important for encouraging smaller farmers and land managers to engage in nature restoration. Stakeholders from Scottish Agricultural Organisation Society (SAOS) and Bioregioning Tayside thought the government needed to ‘let go’ of its risk aversion and accept that not all projects will work.

These calls for simplicity and flexibility must, obviously, be measured against a need for regulation and accountability, to ensure that collaborative landscape management is done effectively and makes best use of public funds. This was acknowledged by stakeholders, to some extent, though there was a strong push to favour flexibility and incentives over regulation. There is also a potential tension between demands for flexibility and demands for simplicity. The greater the variety of options that are offered, the greater the complexity of support required.

Integrated approach

Stakeholders indicated a need for clear and joined-up support and advice from Scottish Government. In the survey, 16 out of 20 survey respondents felt that navigating complex and contested interests and priorities was essential, the remaining 4 felt it was somewhat important, as shown in Figure 5, below.

Taking an integrated approach to designing and implementing support, as well as governance of collaborative landscape management was considered a solution that could help navigate this complexity and contestation, as well as balance flexibility with accountability and simplicity. Stakeholders strongly suggested that for policies to successfully support collaborative landscape management, they must be joined-up and ensure they complement each other. To aid this, stakeholders wanted to see greater integration of different sectors, policies and government departments, as well as regular and meaningful engagement with stakeholders, to listen to their needs. For example, non-governmental organisations, such as the RPSB, LENs, Bioregioning Tayside and the Deer Management Groups, who are already doing collaborative work with farmers and land managers at a landscape scale, stated they would benefit from increased collaboration with the government and agricultural sector. Such a collaborative approach was perceived, by stakeholders, as advantageous, because working across sectors could help to improve simplicity and efficiency of support for collaborative land management, as well as build on existing efforts to increase the scale of collaborative landscape management. However, there could be a danger that involvement of other sectors could diminish support for agriculture. Some stakeholders were therefore careful to ensure that agricultural funding stays ringfenced.

Monitoring, evaluation and knowledge-sharing

Stakeholders also emphasised the importance of support for monitoring and evaluation of collaborative landscape management approaches. In particular, they thought this should involve support for understanding and mapping the biodiversity that exists in a landscape, and then assessing the impacts of collaborative projects on this biodiversity, over time. Stakeholders suggested a range of approaches for understanding the success or efficacy of collaborative landscape management projects. This included more informal opportunities for learning and sharing knowledge, as well as more structured approaches to formal monitoring and evaluation. In terms of learning and sharing knowledge, ‘study tours’ (where groups of farmers visit farmers in another location to learn from each other), and forums such as conferences and the FIRNS ‘community of practice’, were considered important for encouraging reflection and learning about collaborative landscape management. Stakeholders suggested several potential benefits of such opportunities for learning and sharing knowledge. In the workshop, one land agent thought they could help farmers and land managers understand what work is needed to manage landscapes for nature restoration in their local areas, and understanding how collaborations may be set up. A cluster farmer thought they could be used for sharing how business and funding decisions and agreements are made.

In terms of more formal, or structured, monitoring and evaluation, the importance of setting ‘baselines’ and maps of the biodiversity that exists in a landscape, at the start of a project, were considered essential by a range of stakeholders in both the survey and the workshop. For instance, a survey respondent from a conservation NGO stated that monitoring and evaluation should be conducted: “on a project scale by establishing the baseline and then how the project has moved beyond this”. In other words, farmers and land managers should establish what biodiversity exists in a landscape at the outset of a project, and then assess the success of the project according to whether and by how much biodiversity improves during the implementation of the project. This was reflected by similar suggestions across the survey and the workshop, with stakeholders indicating a need for farmers to be assisted in producing such baselines and associated maps. However, a GWCT representative in the workshop contended that such baselines of biodiversity need to be conducted at the level of individual farms, before they can be done at the landscape scale.

As is often the case when discussing approaches for monitoring and evaluation, there was tension between assessing standardised indicators of biodiversity and exploring more contextual, qualitative experiences. In the survey, several respondents, across different perspectives, called for monitoring and evaluation in relation to general standards of biodiversity, such as standardised ‘measurement, recording and verification’ frameworks. In contrast, other survey respondents emphasised the importance of context-specific monitoring and evaluation that takes specific, landscape-scale objectives into account and includes qualitative data regarding people’s relationships with the landscape and the biodiversity within it. One farmer specifically objected to ‘simplified biodiversity metrics.’ A respondent from a conservation NGO suggested that monitoring and evaluation should include recreational and cultural elements, as well as those related to biodiversity and climate outcomes. This was reflected by the strong sentiment in the workshop around the importance of flexibility and context-specific approaches. Striking a balance between standardised and context-specific approaches to monitoring and evaluation therefore remains a challenge.

Opportunities for supporting collaboration

Further to the needs for support, outlined above, stakeholders suggested several opportunities for improving support for collaborative landscape management. Again, stakeholders were keen to emphasise the importance of building on existing efforts, rather than ‘reinventing the wheel’.

Existing structures for enabling collaboration

Stakeholders suggested several existing initiatives that could be invested in to help consolidate and encourage uptake of collaborative landscape management approaches. Farmer clusters, which were considered a successful example of collaborative landscape management approaches, are beginning to be developed in Scotland. Thus far, these have largely been supported by the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust, and exist in Strathmore, Moray, Lunan Burn, and West Loch Ness. Efforts are also underway to develop LENs in Leven and elsewhere. Stakeholders also suggested that the Regional Land Use Partnerships and Deer Management Groups already have structures in place for encouraging collaboration, and these could be built upon. Several stakeholders suggested that investment in these existing structures for networking and collaboration should be increased, particularly the Regional Land Use Partnerships (RLUPs) and FIRNS Community of Practice. Funds such as the Just Transition Fund may also be used to support building partnerships, as in the given example of the Findhorn Watershed Initiative.

Funding and training for facilitators

For supporting facilitation, specifically, stakeholders advocated for the English Countryside Stewardship Facilitation Fund’ (CSFF) to be adopted in Scotland. Some also highlighted that some support for facilitation was included in the Environmental Cooperation Action Fund (ECAF), although this closed in 2017, without having issued any funding. Some stakeholders suggested something similar could be incorporated into Scottish Government’s Tier 1 and Tier 2 agricultural support mechanisms. In terms of providing training to create a cadre of skilled facilitators, the Farm Advisory Service (FAS) were considered well-placed to contribute to this. Their services already include communicating and explaining new support schemes as they come online. It was suggested this could be expanded to provide opportunities for learning and training for facilitators, as well as delivering proactive facilitation of collaborative projects.

Incentives and funding for implementation

Stakeholders were keen for funding and financial incentives to support collaborative landscape management approaches. In terms of financial incentives for farmers to engage in collaborative activities, stakeholders considered the current incorporation of points for collaborative projects within Agri-environment Climate Scheme (AECS) payments as a positive, and suggested that the availability of points for collaboration should be expanded. Similarly, several stakeholders suggested including a collaborative element in the Nature Restoration Fund. Incentivising collaborative landscape management within the Basic Payment Scheme was also considered an opportunity.

Private sector investment

Many stakeholders, particularly those representing agri-environment NGOs, acknowledged that providing holistic financial support for collaborative landscape management would be expensive. It may not be possible for such support to be entirely provided by the public sector. Stakeholders were therefore keen to see greater private sector investment to support incentivisation and implementation of collaborative landscape management activities. Conservation NGOs highlighted that current ‘rewilding’ initiatives are already funded mostly through private business, including foreign investors. Exploring similar opportunities to support collaborative landscape management could therefore offer a solution to increasing financial incentives for this.

Various stakeholders highlighted opportunities to incentivise private companies to support collaborative landscape management. Some thought food companies could partner with or invest in collaborative groups of farmers, particularly local businesses operating within the same landscape. This was also thought to result in shorter supply chains, which could further complement biodiversity and climate goals. Others thought larger businesses (such as large supermarkets or chain restaurants) could be encouraged to build reputational capital in Scotland at a large scale, by investing in biodiversity and climate outcomes. Stakeholders highlighted that most businesses now have environmental targets and have an interest in contributing to positive outcomes for nature and climate. However, they still need a push from Government to take the initiative. Some stakeholders thought the role of Scottish Government could be to facilitate direct connections between farmer groups and private sector funders, whilst others suggested mandating companies to conduct ‘nature impact disclosures’ could push them to invest in nature restoration.

Existing initiatives that encourage private sector investment in natural capital were also considered useful for stimulating private sector investment. In particular, stakeholders spoke positively about the Facility for Investment Ready Nature in Scotland (FIRNS), and saw increasing the investment and scale of this as an opportunity for supporting collaborative landscape management. A ‘Landscape Scale Natural Capital Tool’, is also being developed by NatureScot, to assess and value natural capital assets across a landscape. There was a strong appetite, particularly among those representing farmer clusters, for further development of this, in partnership with private companies who have nature restoration goals. Some agricultural stakeholders also highlighted the opportunity for new forms of land tenancy, in which natural capital gets integrated into the value of a farm. They thought this could incentivise groups of farmers to collaborate, to increase the value of natural capital across a landscape.

Advocacy and education

Increasing advocacy, education and information flows was considered a useful approach for highlighting the benefits of collaborative landscape management for nature and climate, as well as businesses that depend on the land for productivity. Several stakeholders suggested that building on the existing approach taken by the FAS could be an opportunity to promote this. The FAS already help to communicate and explain information about new initiatives, as they come onstream. Stakeholders therefore considered them well-placed to facilitate communication and sharing of information about successful examples of collaborative landscape management projects, as well as improving understanding of the benefits of managing landscapes for positive nature and climate outcomes. Other suggested opportunities to increase knowledge and information flows about collaborative landscape management included: advocacy campaigns and training, conferences, ‘study tours’, and ‘place-based apprenticeships’ to increase awareness of environmental challenges for young farmers.

Some agricultural representatives also proposed that the farming media, and events, such as the Royal Highland Show, could do more to communicate the benefits of collaborative landscape management and provide recognition of successful collaborations. Printed, online or, podcast media, particularly those that farmers are actively listening to, represent an opportunity to highlight the need for collaborative landscape management. The wider group was in agreement and a representative from Scottish Land and Estates suggested their ‘Helping it Happen’ awards could incorporate a collaboration category to reward and promote collaborative approaches.

Creating a culture of collaboration

The opportunities presented above emphasise the importance and potential benefits of building on existing initiatives. Stakeholders were keen for a culture of collaboration to be created, in which all stakeholders are involved. Several stakeholders commended this engagement, as a useful step in taking stock of existing collaborations and involving stakeholders in planning support for collaborative landscape management. They were therefore keen for further such engagements. Some stakeholders, such as LENs and the Strathmore Farmer Cluster thought that accreditation of collaborative groups as ‘trusted operators’ would help consolidate their positions and encourage further collaboration. Stakeholders thought that greater integration across policies, as well as across sectors would help encourage collaboration. However, stakeholders acknowledged this is complex and agreed that agricultural support must remain ringfenced.

Monitoring and evaluation

Stakeholders also suggested several existing initiatives that could be built on to assist monitoring and evaluation of collaborative landscape management approaches. Farmer cluster groups were again highlighted as examples of best practice, in this case for developing standards and creating opportunities for data collection. For example, the Strathmore Cluster are currently using hand-held mapping systems for mapping key species. Deer Management Groups were also raised as an existing structure that could help to lead, pool and disseminate data. Similarly, Bioregioning Tayside are using ‘community science’, to involve local communities in monitoring biodiversity in their local area. Stakeholders thought such approaches could be useful for monitoring the effects of collaborative landscape management on biodiversity.

Increasing ‘open access’ to data, mapping and modelling also has the potential to help land managers and communities understand why change is needed. The Landscape Scale Natural Capital Tool, being developed by NatureScot was considered a useful initiative to support access to data. This is taking a holistic approach to recording different elements of a landscape, and their condition, such as soil types, or water quality. This tool could prove useful for understanding and mapping what is needed for positive outcomes for nature and climate, and could be used by collaborative groups to plan and set goals. Open access to such data could also allow groups to feel some ownership over it. However, stakeholders did raise the question of how and by whom data collection and mapping should be paid for. Some emphasised the fact that this too needs to be funded and facilitated.

Other useful data sources that stakeholders suggested, included ecological surveys and apps being rolled out by NatureScot, as part of the Agricultural Reform Programme, and the Linking Environment And Farming (LEAF) Sustainable Farming Review or data platforms like Omnia (a digital information tool for supporting farm management). One participant indicated that mobile apps for recording biodiversity, are being developed for biodiversity credit schemes. Several stakeholders also indicated that bringing in independent reviewers, such as universities and expert ecologists, could help to support monitoring and evaluation.

Conclusions

In this section, we draw conclusions in relation to what is currently working well, what is needed and what opportunities may be built upon for supporting collaborative landscape management. We also highlight some gaps and opportunities for further research and innovation. The conclusions are based on the input from stakeholders in this study. They are particularly relevant to the Scottish Government’s Agricultural Reform Programme but may also be relevant to other groups with resources and capacity to support collaborative landscape management.

What is working well?

It is important to build on existing initiatives and avoid reinventing the wheel. Successful collaborations in Scotland provide examples for how to bring people together and build relationships across landscapes and could thus be supported to build on their existing work. Stakeholders also consider that the English farmer cluster model works well. This is beginning to be replicated in Scotland. The main factors supporting these examples’ success were support for facilitation, bespoke projects that bring people together to work on an issue of common interest, forums for sharing knowledge and experience, and an integrated approach to supporting collaboration.

What support is needed?

Although the examples of success are encouraging, stakeholders thought that collaborative landscape management is currently hindered by limited support for facilitation, scarcity of suitable incentives and funding for implementation, poorly integrated approaches to support, and limited evidence of successful collaborations. Overall, Scotland was considered to lack a collaborative culture among farmers and land managers.

Facilitators are required to bring groups together and enable planning, preparing for and implementation of collaborative landscape management approaches. Support for facilitators is therefore required in the form of training, to develop their skillsets, as well as funding to pay for their time and skills.

Stakeholders also require incentives and long-term funding for development and implementation of collaborative landscape management activities. Encouraging private sector investment could act as an incentive, as well as supplementing public sector funding for implementation of collaborative activities. Balancing accessibility and flexibility of funding, with quality control and regulation, is a challenge, but stakeholders strongly thought that greater accessibility and flexibility are needed to encourage engagement in collaborative landscape management. Support for bespoke projects, perhaps utilising private sector funding, or tailored support for different landscapes and regions could help resolve this.

Education and advocacy are considered necessary to change attitudes and highlight the benefits of collaborative landscape management. This would be aided by support for monitoring and evaluation that demonstrates the effects of collaborative approaches. A culture of collaboration may also be fostered through an integrated approach to supporting collaborative landscape management. Stakeholders are keen for integrated policies within government, as well as involvement of actors beyond those directly involved in government and the agriculture sector.

What opportunities exist?

Existing examples of collaborative structures, such as farmer clusters, Regional Land Use Partnerships, Landscape Enterprise Networks and Deer Management Groups may be used as foundations for future collaborative landscape management approaches. Investing in them could thus help to consolidate and enhance uptake of collaborative landscape management approaches.

Funding for facilitation may be supported by adapting the English Countryside Stewardship Facilitation Fund for Scotland. The approach of the Farm Advisory Service could be elaborated to include training a cadre of skilled facilitators for collaboration.

Incentives for collaboration may be built into the Agri-Environment Climate Scheme and the Nature Restoration Fund, through increasing the points available for collaborative approaches in these schemes. Opportunities exist to increase private sector investment in collaborative landscape management, including increasing the scale of the Facility for Investment Ready Natural Capital in Scotland (FIRNS), and completing development of NatureScot’s Landscape Scale Natural Capital Tool. The Scottish Government could also play a useful role by actively facilitating connections between farmers and private-sector organisations, such as local businesses and larger scale supermarkets and chain restaurants.

Building on existing initiatives and networks could also help foster a culture of collaboration. This could include increasing opportunities for training, conferences and knowledge sharing, as well as communicating the benefits of collaborative landscape management approaches. There is growing access to data, including NatureScot’s Ecological Surveys and their developing Landscape Scale Natural Capital Tool, as well as other sources and types of knowledge, including participatory approaches like Bioregioning Tayside’s community science. These could help improve understanding of the effects of collaborative approaches, whilst promotion of collaborative landscape management approaches via the Farm Advisory Service, farming media and agricultural events could help raise awareness.

Gaps and opportunities for future research and innovation

The results of this project identified several tensions. Stakeholders appeared to prefer encouragement for collaboration via increasing incentives, but there was acknowledgement of the importance of regulation. They also requested both simplicity and flexibility to support context-specific, bespoke projects, but simplicity and flexibility are not always easily enabled together.

Private sector investment may help to increase incentives and provide some of this flexibility, but it will require caution to ensure standards continue to be met. Exploring and testing mechanisms for involving the private sector in a way that ensures responsible and accountable nature restoration, whilst making favourable returns on investment is an important opportunity for research and innovation.

Stakeholders also highlighted the importance of integration across government policies and between government and other stakeholders. However, questions about how such forms of integration may be achieved and who should be responsible for coordinating them, remain unresolved. Further research and innovation on the topic of integration is therefore important.

Although this study identified and engaged with a range of stakeholders and initiatives, the timescale for this project required tight targeting. Further engagement and a more in-depth appraisal would be beneficial. In particular, the 2024 UK General Election hindered engagement with UK Government stakeholders involved in collaborative landscape management approaches. Further engagement with the Farm Advisory Service could also be useful. It may also be enlightening to conduct a more in-depth appraisal of international examples of support for collaborative landscape management.

References

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Appendices

Appendix A. Methodology

We began by identifying a conceptual framework of factors likely to enable collaborative landscape management. We then invited people with knowledge and interest in agriculture, land management and conservation in Scotland to share their perspectives in a stakeholder engagement in June 2024. This involved two activities: 1) a consultation, via an online survey; and 2) a stakeholder workshop, held in person, in Perth on 25^th June 2024. Each of these invited a range of stakeholders to respond to discussion questions, structured around a conceptual framework based on existing research about factors that support collaborative landscape management. Each engagement approach engaged 20 stakeholders. The survey was anonymous, so it is difficult to say precisely how many stakeholders contributed overall, but based on the organisations represented in each activity, we estimate around 30 stakeholders contributed overall. This yielded expert insights regarding lessons learned from experience of existing support for collaboration, as well as aspirations, needs, and interests of those involved in promoting and delivering collaborative landscape management. Below we first describe the conceptual framework, and then summarise the two stakeholder engagement activities, and how the resulting data were analysed.

Conceptual framework

A growing number of studies exist that identify and suggest factors that can contribute to supporting collaborative landscape management. These elements are brought together by Westerink et al. (2017), into a framework which suggests that to support collaborative landscape management, it is important to consider the following characteristics:

• Coordinating the collective effort of landholders across a landscape, and ensuring their efforts complement each other.
• Promoting the involvement of both governmental and non-governmental actors in processes of decision making around landscape management
• Enabling monitoring and learning from the effects of landscape management approaches

A range of specific factors have been suggested by various authors to help in enabling these characteristics (Hodge, 2024, Prager, 2015, Prager, 2022, Riley et al., 2018, Runhaar and Polman, 2018) These include:

• Building on existing relationships and collaborative activities.
• Skilled facilitation.
• Ensuring sufficient time, funding and resources are available, especially for facilitation.
• Setting clear and realistic expectations.
• Balancing top-down governance and bottom-up initiative.
• Navigating complex and contested interests and priorities.
• Learning, monitoring and knowledge exchange.
• User-friendly procedures for accessing incentives.

In this research, we used the above characteristics and specific factors to structure the questions for response in the consultation and discussion in the workshop, whilst remaining open-minded to responses emerging from beyond this framework.

Online consultation survey

The survey, administered online via Qualtrics, consisted of a mixture of open-ended and multiple-choice questions, which were structured around the factors that the conceptual framework identifies as important to consider for supporting collaborative landscape management. The open-ended questions asked stakeholders for their views on: supportive factors for collaborative landscape management; barriers to collaboration; the ideal roles of government and non-government actors; and understanding the impacts of collaborative activities. The multiple-choice questions asked stakeholders to rate how important they thought various factors would be in supporting collaborative landscape management, as well as how long they thought support should last for. The full list of questions is available in Appendix B.

In-person workshop

The workshop, held in-person at the Perth Subud Centre on 25^th June 2024, brought together a group of 20 stakeholders to deliberate what was needed to support collaborative landscape management in a Scottish context. To provide a backdrop for the workshop discussions, the workshop began with a brief presentation by an academic expert on lessons for thinking about collaborative landscape management from elsewhere, followed by presentation of initial results from the online survey. Stakeholders were then asked to discuss the following set of four questions, based on the conceptual framework, in small groups, and list their responses:

• What is currently working well in terms of support for collaborative landscape management (drawing on examples from within Scotland and elsewhere)?
• What barriers exist for collaborative landscape management (drawing on examples from within Scotland and elsewhere)?
• In general, what types of support are needed to enable collaborative landscape management?
• How can learning and knowledge exchange about collaborative landscape management be supported?

The small group activity was followed by a full group session, in which stakeholders were asked to consider and discuss the question of how support for collaborative landscape management in Scotland could be done better, and then finally to note down suggested next steps. The full programme for the workshop is available in Appendix C

Recruitment of stakeholders

To recruit stakeholders for both the survey and workshop, we capitalised, initially, on contacts held by the research team with farmer clusters and non-governmental organisations working on biodiversity restoration and climate outcomes. We then expanded the selection through these networks, as well as via recommendations from Scottish Government partners. All of the stakeholders were invited to participate in both the survey and the workshop, though not all were able to participate in both. This resulted in a group of stakeholders who represented a range of different perspectives, including: farmers, farmer cluster facilitators, land agents, landowners, academic experts, and non-governmental organisations working in agriculture, land management and conservation. We also invited organisations involved in administering the Farm Advisory Service, but did not receive a response. Overall, 20 stakeholders participated in the survey and 20 (not all the same people) attended the workshop. These are listed in Table 1, below.

Overall, this stakeholder engagement included representation from a range of stakeholders involved in agriculture, conservation and land management. Existing farmer clusters, in particular, were well-represented, as were agri-environment and conservation NGOs. However, the tight targeting for this project meant that it was not possible for all possible stakeholders to be included. Perspectives from providers of farmer advisories could have been better represented, as could land agencies and the private sector. A UK Government General Election also hampered efforts to include perspectives from UK Government agencies involved in collaborative landscape management. The focus of the study on agriculture also meant that perspectives associated with other land uses, such as forestry and recreation, were not represented. The findings therefore strongly reflect farming and conservation perspectives and, whilst this is relevant to the agricultural reform programme, further studies may be enriched through inclusion of a wider range of perspectives.

Analysis

By design, both the survey and the workshop produced mainly qualitative data, regarding stakeholders’ views on what was needed to support collaborative landscape management. The data was collated by the research team into sets of summary notes, which we read through, carefully, and identified themes across the stakeholders’ responses. For rigour, we compared themes from the survey against those from the workshop, and from both activities against the proposed supportive factors for collaborative landscape management, identified in the conceptual framework. We also compared the themes across different groups of stakeholders, to explore if there was agreement/disagreement or difference between different sectors.

Limitations

We are confident that this methodology enabled us to invite and explore expert insights across a range of agricultural and conservation perspectives, including from actors already involved in collaborative landscape management activities. The combination of an asynchronous online survey with an in-person workshop helped ensure that the study benefited from both anonymous input from individuals, in their own time, and without their responses being influenced by others, as well as in-depth knowledge exchange and deliberation in the workshop. Nonetheless, as with any workshop, it is possible that the discussions, and thus the data, were influenced by the most vocal participants and the general biases of those present, whilst the survey had limited opportunities to yield in-depth responses. We have therefore made efforts to present the results in a balanced way and highlighted areas of disagreement and uncertainty. Both activities were limited by the amount of time available for the study, and a richer picture may have been painted with more time for in-depth inquiry.

Appendix B. Examples of landscape scale collaboration from outside of Scotland that were suggested by survey respondents

Appendix C. Online consultation survey questions

Online Consultation: How can landscape scale collaboration be supported to help deliver nature restoration, climate change mitigation and adaptation?

Introduction – *Watch short, recorded presentation* – embed in Qualtrics.

Thank you for taking the time to contribute your insights to this study on how landscape scale collaboration can be supported to deliver nature restoration, and climate change mitigation and adaptation.

This short survey will ask you to respond to a series of questions regarding the factors you think are important for supporting landscape scale collaboration. The questions build on the framework outlined in the presentation, in particular:

• how you think collaborative landscape management should be facilitated,
• how you think government and non-governmental actors should support collaborative landscape management,
• what would help support learning in collaborative landscape management,
• and what conditions and resources are needed for all of this.

The survey consists of a mixture of open-ended questions and sliding scales and should take around 10-15 minutes to complete. You will be asked to name the organisation you represent, but this will not be linked with your responses in the findings or outputs from this study, to ensure you are not identifiable (please refer to the information sheet and consent form for further details).

1) Do you consent to take part in this survey? (You do not have to answer all questions and you may withdraw at any point).

Yes/No (Conditional question – Yes needed to advance).

3) For which organisation do you work?:

Free Text

4) What measures (e.g. administrative, funding, logistical, etc) are required to support land managers to undertake collaborative landscape-scale management to benefit biodiversity and climate mitigation?

Free text

5) What should be the role of a) governmental and b) non-governmental actors in decision-making around collaborative landscape management?

a) governmental actors

Free text

b) non-governmental actors

Free text

6) How can the impact of collaborative landscape-scale activities be monitored and evaluated?

Free text

7) To what extent do you agree that the following are important factors in enabling landscape-scale collaboration to benefit nature restoration and mitigate climate change?:

Building on existing relationships and collaborative activities between landholders.

Essential

Somewhat important

Neutral

Not important

Unnecessary

Not sure

Facilitation of collaboration (e.g. having an advisor who helps convene, plan for and enable collaborative activities).

Essential

Somewhat important

Neutral

Not important

Unnecessary

Not sure

Availability of sufficient time, funding and resources for the planning and implementation of collaborative activities.

Essential

Somewhat important

Neutral

Not important

Unnecessary

Not sure

Developing clear and realistic plans for collaborative activities.

Essential

Somewhat important

Neutral

Not important

Unnecessary

Not sure

Balancing top-down governance and bottom-up initiatives.

Essential

Somewhat important

Neutral

Not important

Unnecessary

Not sure

Navigating complex and competing interests.

Essential

Somewhat important

Neutral

Not important

Unnecessary

Not sure

Support for monitoring and evaluating the effects of collaborative landscape-scale activities.

Essential

Somewhat important

Neutral

Not important

Unnecessary

Not sure

Ensuring application processes for accessing incentives are accessible and user-friendly.

Essential

Somewhat important

Neutral

Not important

Unnecessary

Not sure

8) Are there any other factors you think are important for supporting landscape-scale collaboration? If so, please elaborate.

Free text

9) Are there any factors that tend to constrain or hinder landscape collaboration? If so, please elaborate.

Free text

10) For how long do you think support for facilitation of collaborative landscape activities should last (from the point at which any particular collaboration commences)?

Less than 1 year

1-2 years

2-5 years

5-10 years

Longer than 10 years

Indefinitely

11) For how long do you think support for implementation of collaborative landscape activities should last (from the point at which implementation of a particular activity commences)?

Less than 1 year

1-2 years

2-5 years

5-10 years

Longer than 10 years

Indefinitely

12) Are there any lessons from your experiences or knowledge of collaborative landscape management you would like to share?

Free text

13) Are you aware of any examples of landscape scale collaboration in other countries that could be useful for Scotland to learn from? If so, please mention them here.

Free text

14) Any additional comments.

Free text

*End survey.*

Appendix D. Workshop activities

Landscape-scale collaboration to benefit biodiversity and climate change outcomes – stakeholder engagement – Stakeholder workshop 25/06/2024 Subud Centre, Perth

Aim: To explore stakeholder perspectives and encourage dialogue regarding what is needed to encourage landscape-scale collaboration in the Scottish context.

Welcome and introductions (11:00 – 11:15)

• A brief welcome from the project team.
• Housekeeping stuff – include mention that we will be audio recording and taking notes.
• Expectation that we want to hear from everyone, and everyone’s views are welcome and ought to be respected, including where there are disagreements.
• Run through the agenda.
• An overview from Scottish Government, explaining why we are all here today and Scottish Government’s interest in exploring the possibilities around developing some form of future Landscape Scale Collaboration mechanism within an agri-environment context.
• Brief introductions – name, organisation/sector representing, plus icebreaker question (e.g. favourite vegetable).

Session 1 – Setting the scene (11:15 – 11:50)

Aim: to set the scene with regards to understanding of ‘collaborative landscape management’ for agricultural land and holdings.

To do that, we will hear short talks from:

i) Expert on landscape collaboration approaches, about current understanding in research on landscape-scale collaboration;

ii) initial results from the online consultation survey.

Each presentation will be around 10 minutes, plus 15 minutes for questions at the end of the session.

Session 2 – Share ideas about what is needed to support landscape-scale collaboration in Scotland (11:50 – 13:00)

Aim: to facilitate discussion regarding what participants think is needed to support landscape-scale collaboration in a Scottish context.

This will involve a ‘Carousel’-style activity, whereby stakeholder participants will be split into small groups, rotating around four ‘stations’, each featuring a different discussion question. Proposed questions are:

• What is currently working well in terms of support for collaborative landscape management (drawing on examples from within Scotland and elsewhere)?
• What barriers exist for collaborative landscape management (drawing on examples from within Scotland and elsewhere)?
• In general, what types of support are needed to enable collaborative landscape management?
• How can learning and knowledge exchange about collaborative landscape management be supported?

Participants will be asked to write their group’s responses on pieces of flipchart paper at each station. These will be stuck up around the room for participants to read during the lunch break.

45 minutes – 10-minute explanation – then diminishing amounts of time at subsequent stations (15 mins – 10 mins – 5 mins – 3 mins) 15-minute buffer for overrunning.

Lunch 13:00 – 13:45: Good food & networking.

Session 3 – Plenary discussion (13:45 – 15:00).

Aim: clarify what is needed to support landscape-scale collaboration in Scotland.

This will start with a summary of points brought up during Session 2. Participants will have had time to look at all of the responses that have come up on the flipcharts for the carousel activity. Lead facilitator (SP) will give a brief summary of these as well.

We will then do a ‘think-pair-share’ activity, whereby each participant writes down their thoughts on a sticky note, then compares with the person next to them, and then we ask participants to share with the room. This will be framed around the question:

• how could support for collaborative landscape management in Scotland be done better?

Facilitation note: Encourage participants to be specific about what needs to change, and who can do what, and even, optionally, when.

Then, finally, we will move into more of an open, plenary discussion around opportunities, actions and potential next steps for supporting collaborative landscape management in Scotland.

Facilitation note: Make sure to check and acknowledge differences and disagreements, if not already aired – explore why they might be coming up.

75 minutes – 10-minute review of previous session – 5-minute explanation of next task – 10 minutes for ‘think-pair-share’ question (5 min ‘think’, 5 min ‘pair’) – 50 minutes for general discussion. Then 15 minutes for closing comments.

Finish by around 15:15 – buffer of 15 minutes for closing and leaving.

© The University of Edinburgh, 2024
Prepared by The James Hutton Institute on behalf of ClimateXChange, The University of Edinburgh. All rights reserved.

While every effort is made to ensure the information in this report is accurate, no legal responsibility is accepted for any errors, omissions or misleading statements. The views expressed represent those of the author(s), and do not necessarily represent those of the host institutions or funders.

1. 
   

   This refers to the RESAS Strategic Research Programme ‘People and Nature’ project (JHI-D4-1), which aims to examine the indirect drivers of biodiversity loss – social values and behaviours. https://sefari.scot/research/projects/people-and-nature ↑

   
   

Research completed August 2024

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7488/era/4836

Executive summary

Aims

This report presents indicators for monitoring the four domestic outcomes of the third Scottish National Adaptation Plan (SNAP3). These outcomes are summarised as:

• Nature Connects
• Communities
• Public Services and Infrastructure
• Economy, Business and Industry

It establishes a baseline prior to the implementation of SNAP3 for monitoring and determining progress at the end of the Plan’s five-year period.

The report addresses the challenges of developing indicators for a national adaptation plan by adopting an approach that balances robustness and practicality, considering available resources and data. We have developed a set of indicators for each outcome, assessing their relevance and feasibility for monitoring, through desk-based review and stakeholder engagement. The assessment has been grounded in the practical reality of what data is available rather than theoretically ideal indicators.

Findings

The indicators proposed for each of SNAP3’s outcomes are listed below. For each indicator, there was sufficient data available to allow for a pre-SNAP3 baseline to be established and then reported against after a five-year period.

• Nature Connects – outcome indicators
• Habitat Connectivity Index​ 
• Proportion of surface water bodies classified in high and good condition
• Proportion of Scotland’s protected sites in favourable condition
• Proportion of soft shorelines affected by coastal erosion
• Extent of green-blue land cover in urban areas 
• Proportion of adults who live within a five-minute walk of their nearest green or blue space

These six indicators cover elements of ecological connectivity, ecosystem health, and nature-based solutions (NbS) for climate adaptation. A marine ecosystem indicator could not be included due to insufficient data availability.

• Communities – outcome indicators
• Level of community awareness around climate change
• Level of community climate action
• Progress of actions in local flood risk management plans
• Level of community wellbeing

The four indicators cover elements of community resilience, wellbeing, and climate action. It was particularly challenging to capture the complexity of health and equity in relation to climate adaptation with only a few high-level indicators. The onus was placed on monitoring levels of community action in creating resilient, healthy, and equitable places.

• Public Services and Infrastructure – outcome indicators
• Level of collaboration across public services
• Level of adaptation actions across public services

The two indicators monitor collaboration and adaptation action among public bodies. While these indicators provide high-level insights into public sector collaboration and adaptation efforts, they do not measure the effectiveness or inclusiveness of these actions, which would require numerous sector-specific indicators that would be onerous to monitor.

• Economy, Business and Industry – outcome indicators
• Proportion of businesses monitoring climate-related risks
• Proportion of businesses taking action to adapt to the effects of climate change
• Number of green jobs
• Uptake of grants for agriculture storage reservoirs and off-season storage lagoons​

The five indicators cover elements of business preparedness, adaptation actions, and economic opportunities related to climate change. These indicators provide an overview of Scotland’s economic adaptation to climate change. However, they do not cover investment in climate adaptation initiatives or economic resilience to climate-related hazards, as there were insufficient available data.

Recommendations

Key recommendations for the outcome indicators following this project include:

• Consistent application of indicators. The indicator set for SNAP3 should be finalised as soon as possible and consistently applied to enable meaningful and coherent monitoring over the Plan’s five-year period. Any changes made to individual indicators or the data that underpin them may compromise the ability to track progress consistently relative to the baseline.
• Maintain continuity, quality and availability of data required by each indicator. It is vital to maintain the allocation of resources to the collection, maintenance and accessibility of datasets used by the indicators across all relevant Scottish Government departments.
• Maintain flexibility regarding potential for additional indicators. New indicators may be added in the immediate term if relevant data becomes available, as may be anticipated regarding, for example an ecosystem functions indicator for Nature Connects or a green finance indicator for Economy, Business, and Industry. While the suite of indicators addresses the needs for monitoring the outcomes of SNAP3, it may be viewed as a foundation to build upon regarding monitoring of SNAP4.
• Establish a working group to sustain the functioning of the indicators. The working group could comprise key stakeholders and data providers who could meet annually to review the functioning of the indicators and address any issues regarding their deployment, e.g., continuity and availability of data and its quality.

The findings of this report may also be of interest to anyone interested in monitoring and evaluation of climate adaptation planning more generally.

Glossary / Abbreviations table

Introduction

Aims of this report

The third Scottish National Adaptation Plan (SNAP3)^[1] will be published in Autumn 2024 and Scottish Ministers have agreed that there is a need to improve monitoring of its outputs and outcomes, as compared with the way previous adaptation plans in Scotland have been monitored. The central aim for monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) of SNAP3 is to ensure that the indicators are as robust and relevant as possible for monitoring its specific outcomes, while remaining practical and accessible to implement in terms of resources and data available. We have sought to strike this balance between robustness and feasibility in the outcome indicators presented in this report.

The structure of SNAP3 is based around five long term outcomes and 23 objectives that set out adaptation priorities for the Scottish Government between 2024-2029. These five outcomes are (with abbreviations used hereinafter in brackets):

1. “Nature connects across our lands, settlements, coasts, and seas” (Nature Connects)
2. “Communities are creating climate-resilient, healthy, and equitable places” (Communities)
3. “Public services are collaborating in effective and inclusive adaptation action” (Public Services and Infrastructure)
4. “Economies and industries are adapting and realising opportunities in Scotland’s Just Transition” (Economy, Business and Industry)
5. “Scotland’s international role supports climate justice and enhanced global action on climate adaptation”​ (International Action)

The indicators developed here address the first four outcomes, which are focused on Scotland’s resilience at the national level. Through a process of desk-based research and engagement with the Scottish Government’s departments and relevant organisations, we have developed a suite of indicators to monitor progress of these outcomes. Each indicator was assessed using criteria to determine its inclusion. The criteria addressed the indicator’s conceptual relevance and practical implications, including availability of baseline data. Our development of indicators for the four outcomes of SNAP3 took place concurrently with work undertaken by the Scottish Government to develop a suite of indicators for the 23 objectives that sit beneath the outcomes.

This report takes the following structure: first, Section 1.2 provides a brief overview of MEL in national adaptation contexts. Section 2 outlines the process undertaken to develop the outcome indicators. Section 3 provides information for each indicator and is structured by each outcome. Baseline data is presented in the Section 4. Section 5 concludes with a discussion and recommendations for next steps. Annexes provide further details on methodology and technical information.

Context

A key takeaway from the COP28 in December 2023 was the importance of monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) to understand and report on the effectiveness of the design and implementation of national adaptation planning processes (Beauchamp & Józefiak, 2023). Due to the iterative nature of climate adaptation, MEL is essential to periodically understand the effectiveness of adaptation plans effectiveness and improve their design accordingly (GEF, 2016). Furthermore, national MEL systems are of importance for fulfilling national reporting commitments, such as the Enhanced Transparency Framework under the Paris Agreement (UNDP, 2022).

Developing indicators of climate adaptation is challenging, conceptually and practically, due to the complex, multi-sectoral and context-specific nature of climate impacts that need to be addressed (UNFCC, 2022). Challenges include: the length of time it can take to implement adaptation actions due to their scope and scale; the length of time for adaptation actions to mature and deliver measurable outcomes; and the need for monitoring to be sustained, which poses practical issues regarding maintenance of a consistent methodology using comparable data and associated long-term funding and policy cycles.

No standard metrics exist to capture adaptation nor an off-the-shelf indicator framework to apply to a country’s context (New et al., 2022). Nevertheless, there are numerous efforts to structure MEL of climate adaptation in the form of checklists and toolkits. Examples include: the BASE Evaluation Criteria for Climate Adaptation, which offers a checklist for evaluation focused on outcomes and processes; and the ‘Toolkit for MEL for National Adaptation Plan (NAP) Processes’ for developing countries (Beauchamp et al., 2024).

The Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) framework adopted at COP28 (known as the UAE Framework for Global Climate Resilience) represents a concerted effort at a global level to establish universal targets to guide countries’ adaptation pathways. However, identifying a set of indicators to monitor progress remains a fundamental challenge (Gabbatiss & Lempriere, M, 2024). This is exemplified by the wide-ranging list of potential indicators found in the recent UAE – Belém work programme that synthesises countries’ submissions to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) (UNFCCC, 2024).

In Scotland, the approach to climate adaptation M&E monitoring and evaluation has been robustly developed through the previous Scottish Climate Change Adaptation Programmes (SCCAPs). The Climate Change Committee (CCC) has provided significant recommendations on enhancing the M&E framework within Scotland. A key recommendation from the CCC has been to establish clear, measurable outcomes and associated indicators that can effectively capture the progress and impact of adaptation initiatives (CCC, 2022). Recognising the benefits of this approach, the Scottish Government has adopted an outcomes-focused approach for its Adaptation Plan. The importance of aligning national adaptation indicators with local contexts, ensuring that the indicators are relevant and actionable for Scotland’s unique environmental, social, and economic conditions has been highlighted in previous ClimateXChange research (Moss, A., 2019). he work presented in this project builds upon this background of previous MEL work.

Developing the suite of indicators

To develop the suite of indicators for monitoring the four outcomes of SNAP3, we followed a five-step approach, as illustrated in Figure 1 and described below.

The first step was a desk-based, data-mapping process. This involved reviewing draft SNAP3, the previous adaptation national plans, the published relevant Scottish policies and some international guidelines on MEL to identify possible indicators. The second step involved developing criteria to rank the indicators and facilitate their selection. At the third and fourth steps, this first longlist of indicators was presented and discussed with several stakeholders, during both one-to-one interviews and four workshops organised on each of the four SNAP3 outcome areas. This dynamic process enabled us to refine and amend the longlist of indicators, clearly identify gaps and limitations, and provide some recommendations. The final step of the process was the presentation of the indicator framework containing 12 outcome indicators.

Figure 1: The five-step approach to develop the suite of indicators

Figure 2:: visualisation of the indicator development process

Desk-based research

The first stage of developing indicators involved data mapping through review of:

• Sectoral policies listed in the draft SNAP3 and their implementation plans, where published, to search for relevant existing indicators and associated datasets (See Annex 1).
• Relevant existing indicators and associated datasets used by previous Scottish adaptation plans (CCC, 2023; Moss, A., 2019,) and unpublished meeting notes from a stakeholder workshop led by CXC in May 2023 entitled ‘Monitoring and evaluation of Scotland’s Climate Change Adaptation Programme 2024-2029’.
• A selection of international guidelines and frameworks on national climate change adaptation monitoring and evaluation (EPA, 2017; FAO, 2017; Mäkinen et al., 2018; OECD, 2015; UNFCCC, 2023; UNFCCC, 2024) to learn from others’ approaches to the identification of outcome indicators and to identify if they used any adaptation outcome indicators that might be modified for use regarding SNAP3.

The four outcomes cover a wide range of different elements. Therefore, we used an approach based around theory of change (ToC) to identify those core elements that the indicators for each outcome should cover. This approach complemented the ToC work undertaken by Scottish Government as part of the draft SNAP3. We identified core elements through interpretation and analysis of each outcome section in the draft SNAP3. The core elements identified were:

• Nature Connects: Ecological connectivity (terrestrial, marine, and coastal); ecosystem health (terrestrial, marine, and coastal); and connection to nature.
• Communities: Community action; community resilience; health and equity.
• Public Services: Public sector collaboration; public sector adaptation action; effectiveness of public sector action; and inclusiveness of public sector action.
• Economy, Business, and Industry: Business preparedness and action; and economic adaptation.

This approach provided a broad structure and scope for the development of a longlist of potential indicators. The latter emerged from this desk-based research (See Annex 2). The longlist was refined by applying the indicator criteria (see Section 2.2 below) and amended based on the inputs gathered during the stakeholder engagement.

Indicator criteria

The indicator criteria (see Table 1) built upon established indicator criteria, such as SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-Bound) (Biden, 2022) and RACER (Relevant, Accepted, Credible, Easy and Robust) (Peter & Peter, 2009), while refining elements to the specific context (e.g. adaptation relevance). Indicator ranking “low” for any criterion were excluded.

Table 1: Criteria for selecting outcome indicator for SNAP3

Stakeholder engagement

With support from the Scottish Government’s steering group, and drawing upon our desk-based research, we identified relevant stakeholders that could help validate and refine indicators within each outcome area. Stakeholders were considered from various backgrounds relevant to outcome areas, who could offer insights into data availability and gaps, as well as practicality of indicators.

We conducted one-to-one interviews with experts who could offer insights into data availability and gaps to discuss specific areas of the SNAP3 and four stakeholder workshops were organised; one for each outcome area^[2]. We also gathered 66 participants over four workshops, from more than 25 different organisations, detailed in Annex 3. They were invited based on their expertise in fields relevant to each outcome area discussed and their knowledge of climate adaptation. The participants received the longlist of indicators before the workshop and were asked: (a) whether the indicators proposed covered well the targeted outcome area and (b) if there were any aspects missing.

The overall aim of stakeholder engagement was to engage with relevant teams across the Scottish Government on existing monitoring work to date, review existing available datasets, and amend the longlist of quantitative indicators developed by Ricardo. Experts confirmed, advised against, or suggested indicators that would best reflect the outcome areas. The workshops helped identify limitations of the selected indicators, as well as highlighting suggested outcomes that should not be included (for example, due to lack of data availability).

Outcome indicators

This section presents the proposed outcome indicators for SNAP3. Figure 2 visually presents the proposed outcome indicators, with each indicator categorised under the relevant outcome area. An overview is provided for each outcome before detailing each indicator. This information includes the indicator title, description, data holder, unit and rationale for inclusion. Detailed information for how the indicator criteria was applied to each indicator is provided in Annex 4.

Figure 2: Proposed outcome indicators for SNAP3

Nature connects across our lands, settlements, coasts, and seas

Overview

The outcome Nature Connects places emphasis on nature’s role in climate adaptation. It emphasises connectivity across landscapes, settlements, coasts, and seas to bolster ecosystem resilience. Key actions include developing nature networks in every local authority area, managing invasive species, and enhancing natural carbon stores like peatlands and forests. Taking a holistic approach aims to improve Scotland’s climate resilience while delivering co-benefits for biodiversity, flood mitigation and human wellbeing. Figure 3 illustrates the SNAP3’s pathway from objectives to outcome and impact for the Nature Connects outcome.^[3]

Considerations for indicator selection

Following the desk-based review and stakeholder engagement, several considerations emerged regarding indicator selection for the Nature Connects outcome:

• The importance of acknowledging that connectivity indicators do not necessarily reflect habitat quality or overall ecosystem resilience. Hence, ideally, there would be a focus on ecosystem functions and processes. However, while indicators focused on ecosystem functions are currently under development by Nature Scot, they will not be operational in time for use in monitoring SNAP3.
• Despite the high-level nature of indicators, there is a need to reflect Scotland’s diverse environment. Freshwater environments were highlighted as both a useful proxy for the extent of ecological connectivity and with a comprehensive and accessible dataset.
• Urban green infrastructure is an important aspect of this outcome and the indicators should capture the extent of accessibility to nature and green spaces.
• Species indicators are not sufficiently sensitive to show a significant trend over SNAP3’s five years. Changes in species abundance and distribution due to climate change are often gradual. Species’ adaptation, whether through genetic changes, changes in behaviour, or moves to new areas, often require longer than five years to be observable. Over a shorter period, it can be difficult to distinguish between short-term fluctuations and longer-term changes driven by climate change. While five-year studies can provide valuable snapshots and early indicators, longer timeframes are typically needed to confidently assess significant trends in species abundance and distribution related to climate adaptation. Therefore, indicators like “terrestrial species’ abundance” developed by Nature Scot were deemed inappropriate for inclusion.
• As outlined in SNAP3, marine ecosystems will make a vital contribution to Scotland’s adaptation to climate change. However, there is very limited data available to measure marine habitat connectivity. Furthermore, there is difficulty capturing adaptation of the marine environment in a single, general indicator. For example, NatureScot’s marine species’ abundance indicator focuses upon the average abundance of 14 species of breeding seabird. Such an indicator was not considered to be suitably representative of marine ecosystems and, therefore, not selected.
• Not all the natural habitat types are captured in this framework. Specific indicators were considered but not selected. For example, the baseline for the Woodland Ecological Condition indicator was too old and the indicator would not cover the 2024-2029 period.

Nature Connects – proposed indicators

When setting out to develop a list of indicators for the Nature Connects outcome, it was important to cover ecological connectivity between habitats across land and sea, ecosystem health, and the implementation of NbS for climate adaptation. To a large extent, the six indicators chosen for this outcome efficiently achieve this coverage by using established indicators and available data held for various Scottish Government agencies.

The proposed indicators are:

• Habitat Connectivity Index
• Proportion of surface water bodies classified in high and good condition
• Proportion of Scotland’s protected sites in favourable condition
• Proportion of soft shorelines affected by coastal erosion
• Extent of green-blue land cover in urban areas
• Proportion of adults who live within a five-minute walk of their nearest green or blue space.

Immediately below we present the baseline information foreach of the six indicators proposed to monitor the Nature Connects outcome. For each indicator, we provide the baseline value, a description of the baseline, the recent trend and desired trend for each indicator to provide context. More information on baseline data is available in Annex 5. This is followed by a further detailed summary of each indicator and the rationale for their inclusion.

Nature Connects – baseline

Habitat Connectivity Index 

• Description: In 2020, the total Equivalent Connected Area (Probability of Connectivity) (ECA (PC) value for Scotland was 35,570 ha for semi-grassland (2.9%), 5,655 ha for woodland (1.4%) and 214,277 ha for heathland (8.3%).
• Recent trends: None.
• Desired trend: Increase
• Baseline
  • Semi-grassland: 2.9%
  • Woodland: 1.4%
  • Healthland: 8.3%

Proportion of surface water bodies classified in good and better condition

• Description: In 2022, 445 (13.7%) surface water bodies were in better condition and 1664 (51.2%) surface water bodies were in good condition.
• Recent trends: This percentage has remained broadly stable in recent years, rising slightly from 61.8% in 2014.
• Baseline: 64.9%
• Desired trend: Increase

Proportion of Scotland’s protected sites in favourable condition

• Description: In March 2024, the proportion of natural features in favourable condition on protected sites was 75.6%.
• Recent trends: The trend between 2023 and 2024 is relatively stable, slightly decreasing by 0.9%.  However, the proportion of features in favourable condition has decreased by 4.8 percentage points since 2016 when it peaked at 80.4%.
• Baseline: 75.6%
• Desired trend: Increase

Proportion of soft shorelines affected by coastal erosion

• Description: In 2021, 46% of the soft coast is affected by coastal erosion. The average rate of erosion is 0.43 m/year.
• Recent trends: In 2017, 38% of the soft coast was affected by coastal erosion, representing an 8% increase in eight years. Note, the proportion of shorelines experiencing coastal erosion, and the rate of erosion, increases under all climate change emissions scenarios.
• Baseline: 46%
• Desired trend: Decrease

Extent of green-blue land cover in urban areas 

• Description: The total area of urban greenspace in Scotland as defined by Ordnance Survey is 3,167 km².
• Recent trends: April 2024 represents the only OS MasterMap Greenspace data currently available from the Ordnance Survey.
• Baseline: 3,166km²
• Desired trend: Increase

Proportion of adults who live within a 5-minute walk of their nearest green or blue space

• Description: In 2022, 70% of adults reported living within a 5-minute walk of their nearest green or blue space.
• Recent trends: This percentage has remained broadly stable since 2013, where it was 68%. There has been a slight, steady increase from 2017 from 65% to 70%. 
• Baseline: 70%
• Desired trend: Increase

Nature Connects – indicator summaries

ECOSYSTEM HEALTH AND CONNECTIVITY

Habitat Connectivity Index 

​The Habitat Connectivity Index was selected to represent the functional health of natural ecosystems in Scotland. Habitat networks enable species to follow their shifting climate envelope and move to new habitats, ensuring their survival and the continuity of ecosystem services. Connectivity is crucial for promoting the survival, migration, and adaptation potential of species populations in response to climate change. By assessing functional connectivity, this indicator provides valuable insights into ecosystem resilience, highlighting areas where habitat fragmentation might increase the risk and exposure of species to climate-related impacts. Enhancing habitat connectivity directly supports the adaptive capacity of species by facilitating movement and gene flow, thereby reducing vulnerability, and supporting biodiversity conservation (Haddad et al., 2015). It reflects the interconnectedness of ecosystems and underscores the importance of maintaining and improving habitat connectivity to mitigate climate risks and enhance the adaptive capacity of natural systems (Krosby et. al., 2010).

Proportion of surface water bodies classified in good or better condition

We chose ‘proportion of surface water bodies classified in high or good condition’ as a proxy for climate change adaptation because it reflects the health and quality of water ecosystems. Healthy water bodies are more resilient to climate change impacts such as altered precipitation patterns, increased temperatures, and pollution. By maintaining high and good conditions, these water bodies can better support biodiversity and delivery of ecosystem services that fulfil human needs, particularly regarding climate adaptation (Palmer et al., 2009).

Proportion of Scotland’s protected sites in favourable condition

We chose ‘proportion of Scotland’s protected sites in favourable condition’ as a proxy to reflect the health and resilience of Scottish ecosystems. Healthy and well-managed protected sites are better able to withstand and adapt to the impacts of climate change, such as shifting species distributions and extreme weather events (Watson et al., 2014). This indicator shows how effectively Scotland is preserving biodiversity and ecosystem services, which are crucial for climate resilience. It is important to look at the proportion of sites in favourable condition by habitat type. Indeed, habitats such as native woodland, which are vulnerable to overgrazing and invasive non-native species, have a lower percentage (56.8%) of sites in favourable condition than the other types of habitats (average of 73.4%).

Proportion of soft shorelines affected by coastal erosion

Scotland’s coastline is estimated to be 18,743 km in length along the high-water line. This indicator was chosen as coastal erosion affects society’s assets such as infrastructure and cultural heritage, and contributes to more frequent coastal flooding. Coastal erosion is exacerbated by climate change. Implementing adaptation strategies to protect Scotland’s coasts is crucial to protect the biodiversity of coastal ecosystems. It also ensures the safety and resilience of coastal communities against climate impacts, as well as the resilience of regional and national infrastructure (McGranahan et al., 2007).

URBAN GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE

Extent of green-blue land cover in urban areas 

This indicator is chosen as a proxy for integration of nature into urban settlements. Green infrastructures within towns and cities are NbS designed to reduce the urban heat island effect, improve resilience to flooding and provide an opportunity for people to enjoy and benefit from nature. Compared to technology-based solutions to climate challenges, NbS like green-blue land cover in urban areas are often more cost-effective and longer lasting. They also have multiple co-benefits, such as reducing net emissions, providing habitats for biodiversity, enhancing human health and well-being (Demuzere et al., 2014; Gill et al., 2007).

Proportion of adults who live within a five-minute walk of their nearest green or blue space

This indicator is chosen as a proxy to reflect the extent communities have access to natural spaces. Easy access to green and blue spaces enhances community resilience in the face of climate stressors by promoting well-being (e.g. air quality improvement, mental and physical health, etc.) (Maas et al., 2006). Access to green and blue spaces helps mitigate the urban heat island effect, providing cooler areas that can reduce heat-related health risks during extreme weather events. Lastly, green and blue spaces contribute to biodiversity and water management, supporting ecosystems that buffer against climate impacts such as flooding (Demuzere et al., 2014).

Communities are creating climate-resilient, healthy and equitable places

Overview

This outcome focuses on empowering communities to create climate-resilient, healthy and equitable places. It adopts a place-based approach, acknowledging that climate impacts vary by local context. Key initiatives include establishing Climate Action Hubs, developing collaborative planning partnerships and providing capacity-building support. This community-centred approach seeks to ensure adaptation efforts are inclusive, address local needs and build societal resilience to climate impacts. Figure 4 presents the SNAP3’s pathway from objectives to outcome and impact for the Communities outcome.^[4]

Considerations for indicator selection

Following the desk-based review and stakeholder engagement, several considerations emerged regarding indicator selection for the Communities outcome:

• Data on exposure to climate-related hazards provides information on the places where efforts need to be intensified to limit inequalities, for example, if hazard data is coupled with data on deprivation or social vulnerability (Sayers, PB., et al., 2021). We explored one indicator related to the exposure of vulnerable populations to climate-related hazards. This indicator sought to understand inequality in how communities are impacted by climate hazards. There are limitations to such an indicator focusing on exposure to flood, heat, drought, or wildfire, as it does not consider the resilience of the population exposed. While exposure is unlikely to change in the short to medium term, measures to reduce the vulnerability of those most exposed to risks will be key to increasing their resilience. It is, therefore, important data but less suitable as an indicator measuring increased community resilience for the purposes of this work. The overall conclusion was that the indicators for the Communities outcome should focus more on actions being taken by communities that are indicative of resilience.
• Flooding and the action taken to adapt to this hazard was a focus for consideration due to its significance as a climate-related hazard for Scotland. Example indicators include the ‘proportion of flood resilience action undertaken’ or ‘uptake of property flood protection measures in deprived areas’, or ‘responses to surveys on adaptation action’. Indicators around property flood protection measures and insurance were considered. However, although schemes such as “Build back better” exist, there were insufficient national data available to include this indicator.
• A combination of two indicators, ‘progress of actions in local flood risk management plans’ and ‘percentage of the population declaring that they understand what actions they should take to help tackle climate change’ were selected as proxies to capture community action in climate adaptation.
• Collaboration at community level was often mentioned as essential when it comes to adaptation to ensure the salience, credibility and legitimacy of actions and common understanding, ownership, and a desire to implement. The level of community climate collaboration is captured through monitoring the Community Climate Action Hubs (CCAH) and Local Place Plans.
• Health is embedded in all the areas of SNAP3. This makes it difficult to have a general indicator linking health to climate-related hazards and issues, such as heatwaves, cold, flooding, vector-borne diseases, and food systems. This could only be captured by a fuller set of indicators focusing on health and well-being. A dataset measuring climate morbidity in Scotland could be relevant as a future outcome indicator for SNAP4 should suitable data become available. For this indicator set, a focus on wellbeing is taken using national data on the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (WEMWBS).

Communities – proposed indicators

When setting out to develop a list of indicators for the Communities outcome, we aimed to cover aspects of community resilience, health, and equity. Of the four indicators selected for this outcome, three indicators reflected the community resilience aspect (level of community awareness; level of community climate action; and progress of actions in local flood risk management plans). There was a particular challenge in capturing the complexity of health and equity in relation to climate adaptation with only a few high-level indicators in this framework. Instead of health, a focus on community wellbeing was taken with the use of national data on the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (WEMWBS). With elements of health and equity not explicitly covered, we have instead put onus on using established indicators and available data to monitor levels of community action in creating resilient, healthy, and equitable places. Monitoring this level of community action, be it in increased community awareness, the growth of Community Climate Action Hubs (CCAH) and Local Place Plans (LPP) or in specific community actions around flood management, provides important insight on how communities are adapting to climate change.

The proposed indicators are:

• Level of community awareness around climate change
• Level of community climate action
• Progress of actions in local flood risk management plans
• Level of community wellbeing.

Below we present the baseline information for each of the four indicators proposed to monitor the Communities outcome. For each indicator, we provide the baseline value, a description of the baseline, the recent trend and desired trend for each indicator to provide context. More information on baseline data is available in Annex 5. This is followed by a further detailed summary of each indicator and the rationale for their inclusion.

Communities – baseline

Proportion of adults viewing climate change as an immediate and urgent problem

• Description: In 2022, 74% of adults viewing climate change as an immediate and urgent problem.
• Recent trends: The Scottish population concerned about climate change representing an immediate and urgent problem has risen every year since 2013, where 46% held this view. In 2017, 61% held this view.
• Baseline: 74%
• Desired trend: Increase

Proportion of the population declaring that they understand what actions they should take to help tackle climate change

• Description: In 2022, 80% of adults agreed that they understood what actions they should take to help tackle climate change.
• Recent trends: In 2018, 74% of adults stated they understood what actions they should take to help tackle climate change.
• Baseline: 80%
• Desired trend: Increase

Number of Community Climate Action Hubs

• Description: In 2024, 20 hubs across Scotland support community-led climate action, covering 81% of the Scottish council areas.
• Recent trends: The first two hubs launched in September 2021 and the network has now expanded, consisting of the 20 hubs.
• Baseline: 81%
• Desired trend: Increase

Number of Local Place Plans

• Description: In 2024, no local place plans have been adopted.
• Recent trends: Many councils have recently invited communities to prepare Local Place Plans so that they can play a proactive role in defining the future of their places.
• Baseline: 0
• Desired trend: Increase

Progress of actions in local flood risk management plans

• Description: In 2019, 90% of the actions to avoid an increase in flood risk were complete. By 2021, 100% of the actions were expected to be complete. In 2019, 84% of the actions to reduce flood risk were complete. By 2021, 96% of the actions were expected to be complete.
• Recent trends: progress was assessed for cycle 1 (2015-2021).
• Baseline: 90% (completed actions to avoid an increase in flood risk), 84% (completed actions to reduce flood risk)
• Desired trend: Increase

Level of community wellbeing

• Description: In 2022, the mean WEMWBS score for all adults was 47.0
• Recent trends: The mean WEMWBS score for all adults remained stable between 2008 and 2019, between 49.4 and 50.0. Since 2019, it has decreased to 48.6 in 2021 and now 47.0 in 2022.
• Baseline: 47.0
• Desired trend: Increase

Communities – indicator summaries

Community awareness around climate change

​This indicator is chosen as it combines the knowledge of what is required to tackle climate change with the perception of urgency in addressing climate change. This combination is a critical aspect of community resilience. A well-informed community that recognises the urgency of climate action is more likely to engage in adaptive behaviours (Marshall et al., 2013; Shi et al., 2016). This indicator provides insights into the adaptive capacity of communities and their readiness to implement adaptation measures.

Community action on climate change

This indicator was selected as the number of Community Climate Action Hubs in Scotland indicates strong community resilience. This is done through fostering local engagement, resource distribution, capacity building, innovation, network-building, and policy advocacy for climate adaptation (Agrawal, 2008). Local Place Plans act as a good proxy for community-led collaboration and action. The data is available and how the hubs and plans relate to action is understandable to wider audiences.

Community flood resilience

This indicator focuses on actions of local authorities to build community flood resilience. It emphasises the importance of communities playing an active role in reducing the impact of climate change effects, in this case increased flooding (McEwen et al., 2014). This aspect is a key part of communities creating climate-resilient, healthy, and equitable places. These flood risk management plans are part of Scotland’s route map for reducing the effects of flooding on communities. This is key to Scotland’s health, wellbeing and economic success, with an estimated 284,000 homes, businesses and services identified as at risk of flooding.

Community wellbeing

This indicator captures the extent of wellbeing within communities. Evidence shows that experience of the effects of climate change, for example a flooding event, and the capacity to adapt or react to it has a direct impact on mental health (Berry et al., 2018; Palinkas & Wong, 2020). Therefore, it is representative of communities and their health in relation to adaptation.

Public services are collaborating in effective and inclusive adaptation action

Overview

This outcome addresses the need for public services to collaborate effectively on adaptation. It aims to enhance governance, culture, skills and resources within public services to enable effective adaptation. Key actions include strengthening the Public Sector Climate Adaptation Network, modernising water industry adaptation and embedding adaptation across transport networks. This approach seeks to ensure continued delivery of essential services and infrastructure resilience amidst climate change. Figure 5 presents the SNAP3’s pathway from objectives to outcome and impact for Public Services.^[5]

Considerations for indicator selection

Following the desk-based review and stakeholder engagement, several considerations emerged regarding indicator selection for the Public Services outcome:

• We determined that focusing on specific sectoral indicators related to the adaptation of critical infrastructure would result in numerous indicators. This would go against a core aim of our work to develop a concise and clear set of indicators. As discussed, the Scottish Government’s work developing indicators at an objective level has taken place alongside development of the outcome indicators presented in this report. Specific sectoral indicators have been determined at the objective level rather than being included in the high-level outcome indicators developed through this work.
• We explored the possibility of an indicator around participation levels at a recently established infrastructure adaptation forum. However, the objectives and the ambitions of this forum are still at an early stage and it was not possible to determine a baseline, so it was not included here.
• Collaboration is an important aspect of this outcome. The extent of collaboration of public service bodies is captured through the Sustainable Scotland Network annual report. The quality of collaboration is equally as important to capture. However, there is currently insufficient data available to incorporate this element within the outcome indicators.

Public services – proposed indicators

When setting out to develop a list of indicators for the Public Services outcome, we aimed to cover the extent of collaboration between public services, as well as the extent of effective and inclusive adaptation. These indicators use data available to capture high-level insights on the extent of public sector collaboration and adaptation actions that public bodies are taking. These indicators do not cover the extent to which these actions are effective or inclusive. Ultimately, this can only be captured at a sector-specific level, as no generalised metric for effectiveness or inclusiveness of public services and infrastructure exists. It was not possible to go to the level of sector-specific indicators for public services and infrastructure as this would result in numerous indicators.

The proposed indicators are:

• Level of collaboration across public services
• Level of adaptation actions across public services.

Below we present the baseline information for each of the two indicators proposed to monitor the Public Services outcome. For each indicator, we provide the baseline value, a description of the baseline, the recent trend and desired trend for each indicator to provide context. More information on baseline data is available in Annex 5. The is followed by a further detailed summary of each indicator and the rationale for their inclusion.

Public services – baseline

This section presents baseline information. For each indicator, we provide the baseline value, a description of the baseline, the desired trend for each indicator and recent trends for each baseline to provide context.

Number of public bodies members in the Public Sector Climate Adaptation Network 

• Description: In 2024, the Public Sector Climate Adaptation Network counted 50 members.
• Recent trends: the Public Sector Climate Adaptation Network was launched in 2019 with 40 major organisations. 10 additional 10 organisations joined the Network in October 2023.
• Baseline: 50
• Desired trend: Increase

Number of public bodies citing the Work in partnership & collaborations as a priority for the year ahead in relation to climate change adaptation 

• Description: In 2022-2023, 53.2% of the 188 listed public bodies (100 public bodies) submitting an annual compliance report cite “Work in Partnerships & Collaborations” in their top five priorities for the year ahead in relation to climate change adaptation.
• Recent trends: In 2021/22, 36.2% of public bodies declared that they prioritized “Work in Partnerships & Collaborations”.
• Baseline: 53.2%
• Desired trend: Increase

Level of risk assessment across the public sector 

• Description: 70.2% of the public bodies submitting an annual compliance report have completed some form of risk assessment during or prior to the 2022/23 reporting period.  43.6% of bodies have carried out a limited risk assessment. 20.7% of bodies have carried out a comprehensive risk assessment. 5.8% have completed an advanced risk assessment,  involving stakeholders and considering a range of climate or socioeconomic scenarios.
• Recent trends: In 2021/22 reporting, 66.0% of public bodies submitted some form of adaptation risk assessment​.
• Baseline:
  • Limited risk assessment: 43.6%
  • Comprehensive risk assessment: 20.7%
  • Advanced risk assessment: 5.8%
• Desired trend: Increase

Level of adaptation action taken across the public sector

• Description: 71.8% of all listed public bodies submitting an annual compliance report have taken adaptation action during or prior to the 2022/23 reporting period. 44% of bodies have taken some action, 21% of all bodies are taking good action. 6% of bodies are taking advanced action.
• Recent trends: In 2021/22 reporting, 67.0% of public bodies reported taking some form of action on adaptation.
• Baseline:
  • Some actions taken: 44%
  • Good action taken: 21%
  • Advanced action taken: 6%
• Desired trend: Increase

Public Services – indicator summaries

Level of collaboration across public services

This indicator is selected as a proxy to demonstrate the level of collaborative effort between different public bodies on shared outcomes and priorities. Collaboration is vital to tackling the complex challenges involved in strengthening climate resilience. Effective collaboration can enhance adaptive capacity, reduce vulnerability, and ensure a cohesive response to climate change (Runhaar et al., 2018).

Level of adaptation actions across public services

This indicator captures the level of climate adaptation actions undertaken by public bodies. The public sector must assess and address climate risks through adaptation planning and action to ensure the quality of its services to the population in a changing climate (Runhaar et al., 2018). By monitoring the level of risk assessment and adaptation actions, this indicator provides insights into the preparedness and resilience of public services.

Economies and industries are adapting and realising opportunities in Scotland’s Just Transition.

Overview

This outcome focuses on adapting the economy and industries to realise opportunities in Scotland’s Just Transition. It aims to support businesses in understanding and responding to climate risks, whilst fostering innovation in adaptation solutions. Key actions include increasing business awareness of climate risks, supporting adaptation in sectors like farming and forestry, and promoting Scotland as an innovation hub for adaptation solutions. This approach seeks to ensure Scotland’s economy remains competitive and resilient whilst capitalising on emerging opportunities. Figure 6 presents SNAP3’s pathway from objectives to outcome and impact for Economy, Business and Industry.^[6]

Considerations for indicator selection

Following the desk-based review and stakeholder engagement, several considerations emerged regarding indicator selection for the Economy, Business and Industry outcome:

• Investments in climate resilience, with a specific taxonomy for adaptation-related investment, was considered a potential indicator. Such a taxonomy would prove a useful indicator for how the economy is adapting to climate change. However, while initiatives are emerging, this has not been fully implemented at national level yet. It is something to consider for inclusion in the next SNAP.
• The direct economic loss associated with climate-related hazards, such as flooding was considered. Some stakeholders felt that many businesses could be reluctant to invest in resilient infrastructure because its benefits are not easily quantified. Capturing direct loss associated with climate-related hazards helps industries understand the value of investments in adaptation. Nevertheless, no viable dataset currently exists for such an indicator in the Scottish context.
• An indicator on green jobs is included in the indicator set. However, it does not capture the development of adaptation skills needed by existing Scottish businesses to address the challenges of climate change. Training employees to increase adaptation knowledge and skills specific to the needs of individuals or businesses is an important aspect that is not captured as no viable dataset currently exists.
• Sustainable practice in the agriculture sector is the focus of one indicator, given it accounts for 69% of Scotland’s total land use. Another area of the economy initially considered was the forestry sector. An indicator “percentage of certified woodland area in Scotland” was considered. However, considering that certification mostly applies to woodlands used for timber production and not woodlands more generally, the coverage of this indicator was considered too limited.
• The proportion of agricultural land categorised as High Nature Value (HNV) Farming has initially been chosen as a proxy of adaptation to climate change in agriculture in Scotland. High Nature Value (HNV) Farming is an indicator used to identify agricultural systems that support high levels of biodiversity through low-intensity, traditional farming practices. HNV farms are more likely to be resilient to climate variability and extreme weather events. However, this indicator was not selected because the latest baseline is from 2013 and has not been updated since then. Should new data become available this indicator could be reviewed in the future.
• Capturing innovation in Scotland’s economy was considered as an important aspect of this outcome. However, given the broad scope, complexity and subjectivity around what constitutes innovation, it is a difficult aspect to capture in a single quantitative indicator and is, therefore, not included.

Economy, Business and Industry – proposed indicators

It is important that the indicators cover the preparedness and adaptation of businesses and industries and the extent into which they take advantage of economic opportunities linked to climate change. The five indicators selected cover business preparedness and action using data periodically recorded by the Business Insights and Conditions Survey. The use of Office of National Statistics (ONS) data on green jobs provides an indicator for the transition towards a climate-smart economy and workforce skills development for the green economy. Another indicator focused specifically on adaptation action in the agricultural sector, which is a significant part of the Scottish economy. Taken together, this set of indicators uses available data to provide a broad indication of whether Scotland’s economy is adapting to climate change. Nevertheless, there are some key aspects that are not covered. These include levels of investment in climate adaptation initiatives and economic resilience (e.g., economic loss related to climate-related hazards) as well as the level of innovation from businesses in responding to climate risks.

The proposed indicators are:

• Proportion of businesses monitoring climate-related risks
• Proportion of businesses taking action to adapt to the effects of climate change
• Number of green jobs
• Uptake of grants for agriculture storage reservoirs and off-season storage lagoons​.

Below we present the baseline information for each of the five indicators proposed to monitor the Economy, Business and Industry outcome. For each indicator, we provide the baseline value, a description of the baseline, the recent trend and desired trend for each indicator to provide context. More information on baseline data is available in Annex 5. This is followed by a further detailed summary of each indicator and the rationale for their inclusion.

Economy, Business and Industry – baseline

Proportion of businesses monitoring climate related risks

• Description: In 2023, 15.6% of Scotland businesses have assessed risks for supply chain disruption and distribution, 6.2% for increased flooding and 4.4% for temperature increase.
• Recent trends: August 2023 was the first time the question related to businesses monitoring climate related risks was asked.
• Baseline:
  • Supply chain disruption: 15.6%
  • Increased flooding: 6.2%
  • Temperature increase 4.4%
• Desired trend: Increase

Proportion of businesses taking action to adapt to the effects of climate change  

• Description: In 2023, 26.5% of Scotland businesses have taken action to adapt supply chain disruption and distribution, 11.5% to adapt to increased flooding and 4.4% to adapt to temperature increase.
• Recent trends: August 2023 was the first time the question related to businesses taking adaptation action was asked.
• Baseline:
  • Supply chain disruption: 25.6%
  • Increased flooding: 11.5%
  • Temperature increase 5.7%
• Desired trend: Increase

Number of green jobs 

• Description: In 2022, Scotland employment in green jobs in 2022 was estimated at 46,200 full-time equivalents (FTEs).
• Recent trends: This number has increased yearly since 2015 (32,800 FTE), except between 2021 and 2022.
• Baseline: 46,200
• Desired trend: Increase

Uptake of grants for agriculture irrigation lagoons 

• Description: In 2024, 5 AECS applications for irrigation lagoons were successful. 14 applications were submitted.
• Recent trends:  the number of applications submitted and successful are usually between 0 and 2 per year.
• Baseline: 5
• Desired trend: Increase

Economy, Business and Industry – indicator summaries

Business awareness of climate adaptation

This indicator captures the level of knowledge and awareness of climate-related risks by businesses. Ensuring businesses across Scotland are aware of the risks that climate change may pose to their operations, premises, staff, and supply chains is a crucial component of a climate resilient economy (Linnenluecke et al., 2013; Surminski, 2013).

Business preparedness in climate adaptation

This indicator captures businesses’ capacity to respond to the risks posed by climate change. Ensuring businesses across Scotland have a plan to face the risks climate change may pose to their operations, premises, staff and supply chains will be crucial to building a more climate resilient economy (Linnenluecke et al., 2013; Surminski, 2013).

Green jobs in the Scottish economy

This indicator monitors the adaptation opportunity in Scotland’s Just Transition as it directly tracks employment in environmentally sustainable sectors. This indicator reflects the economic growth and industry shift towards sustainable practices, essential for climate adaptation and effective Just Transition (Martinez-Fernandez et al., 2010).

Agriculture water-use efficiency

This indicator represents proxy of adaptation by the agricultural sector. Improving water storage efficiency through irrigation lagoons is a strategic adaptation measure that addresses several challenges posed by climate change: it helps mitigate the variability of rainfall patterns and allow farmers to store water during periods of excess rainfall to ensure a steady water supply for crops. It will also contribute to reduce the stress on Scotland’s water resources and reduce flood risk at times by capturing and storing excess rainfall runoff (Schmitt et. al., 2022).

Discussion

Conclusions

Climate adaptation is complex and multifaceted, spanning across sectors and scales. Therefore, MEL of climate adaptation will always be challenging. Nevertheless, monitoring the extent to which an adaptation plan’s outcomes are achieved is essential to understand the effectiveness of its associated activities and policies. Ultimately, efforts to monitor adaptation plans, such as SNAP3, must navigate this complexity, seeking a balance of indicators that is relevant, robust, and practical to implement. We have sought to achieve this balance by taking a systematic approach to the selection of indicators through desk-based review and extensive engagement with stakeholder groups across Scottish governmental departments and associated organisations. The assessment has been grounded in the practical reality of what data is available rather than theoretically ideal indicators.

In relation to the relevance and robustness of indicators, we have developed outcome indicators that efficiently capture most of the core elements of four of SNAP3’s outcomes.

For the Nature Connects outcome, the indicators proposed cover ecological connectivity, ecological health, and urban-nature connection. Taken together, these indicators will provide useful insights on progress in securing the resilience of Scotland’s natural ecosystems to climate change. Lack of an indicator specifically for marine ecosystems, due to inadequate available data, is a key, is a key limitation.

For the Communities outcome, capturing health and equity in high-level, generalised indicators was challenging due to the complexity of these issues. Therefore, the proposed indicators focus on monitoring community action of relevance to climate adaptation.

For the Public Services outcome, the proposed indicators focus upon collaboration and adaptation actions at a high-level. It was impractical to address the effectiveness of actions, as the number of different sectors associated with this outcome would result in numerous indicators.

For the Economy, Business, and Industry outcome, the indicators proposed cover areas of business preparedness and action, the extent of the transition to green economy, and the extent to which an important sector of the economy (agriculture) is undertaking climate adaptation. While acknowledging that the level of investment in climate adaptation initiatives and economic losses resulting from climate-related hazards is not addressed, these indicators will still provide useful insights about the delivery of this outcome.

Regarding practical implementation, the proposed indicators redeploy established indicators that, crucially, are based on accessible data. Most are publicly reported, although some require correspondence with the relevant Scottish Government data holder. The proposed indicators allow for a baseline to be established at the start of SNAP3 and then reported against after a five-year period. There is variation on the extent of historic data available across the indicators; there; there is more extensive data on previous trends for some than others. Importantly, we believe the relevance of proposed indicators is clear and they are straightforward to apply. As such, they can be used at the end of the five-year period by those who have not been closely involved in their development.

The stakeholder engagement process was critical in the development of the outcome indicators. A wide range of relevant stakeholders across Scotland engaged in one-to-one calls, workshops or written feedback to provide insights both conceptually on what indicators might capture SNAP3 outcomes and practically on what data are available. This engagement provided sector- and topic-specific knowledge, as well as offering validation of the final proposed set of indicators. Several themes emerged from this process of engagement. First, there was an inherent tension between what is ideal and what is possible. Discussions sometimes veered more towards enthusiasm about theoretically ideal indicators that monitor outcomes rather than being grounded in the practical reality of what data is available. While this certainly did not negate the importance of discussing ideal indicators, it was important to ensure, insofar as possible, that an onus on what is practically possible influenced the discussion.

Second, often data limitations lay at the heart of challenges regarding identification of suitable indicators. The limitations took different forms: no data existed (e.g., economic loss from climate-related hazards); it was insufficiently captured (e.g., marine species’ abundance); or it was not easy to access or publicly available (e.g., data on Build Back Better grants). It is not uncommon for data limitations to be a significant obstacle to developing indicators for climate adaptation (Vallejo, 2017).

Third, the SNAP3 outcomes are structured in a clearly defined way, which was beneficial for developing the set of proposed indicators, these outcomes overlap in ways that should be acknowledged. One example relates to the Communities outcome and the Public Services outcome, as collaboration is of significance for both community resilience and for effective public services. Hence, community actors and public service actors cannot be clearly distinguished from each other. Another example is the emphasis of Nature Connects outcome on access to green space and associated health benefits that overlaps with the community health and wellbeing aspects of the Communities outcome. Such overlaps are not inherently problematic but did point to the need for the net to be cast as wide as possible when considering stakeholder engagement for when identifying indicators.

Recommendations

Several recommendations and next steps emerge from this work. It is important to finalise the outcome indicators for SNAP3 as soon as possible, as applying these indicators consistently will be crucial to enable meaningful comparisons against the baseline. Any changes made to individual indicators or the data that underpin them may compromise the ability to track progress consistently relative to the baseline. Furthermore, it is important to maintain continuity, quality and availability of data required by each indicator. It is vital to maintain the allocation of resources to the collection, maintenance and accessibility of datasets used by the indicators across all relevant Scottish Government departments.

Whilst the indicators represent a complete and operational indicator set, there should be a flexibility regarding potential for additional indicators. New indicators may be added in the immediate term if relevant data becomes available. For example, an ecosystem functions indicator for Nature Connects or a green finance investment indicator for Economy, Business, and Industry are anticipated in the near future. While the suite of indicators addresses the needs for monitoring the outcomes of SNAP3, it may be viewed as a foundation to build upon regarding monitoring of SNAP4.

Lastly, we recommend establishing a working group to sustain the functioning of the indicators. The working group could comprise key stakeholders and data providers who could meet annually to review the functioning of the indicators and address any issues regarding their deployment, e.g., continuity and availability of data and its quality. Furthermore, this working group would build on the strong interest evident across a wide range of stakeholders to engage in the topic of climate adaption MEL.

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Annexes

Annex 1 – Policies reviewed

The following policies were reviewed for sectorial indicators that could be relevant for the SNAP3 outcome indicators.

Scottish policies listed in the draft SNAP3 for the outcome area “Nature connects across our lands, settlements, coasts and seas”:

Scottish policies listed in the draft SNAP3 for the outcome area “Communities creating climate-resilient, healthy and equitable places”:

Scottish policies listed in the draft SNAP3 for the outcome area “Public services are collaborating in effective, inclusive adaptation action”:

Scottish policies listed in the draft SNAP3 for the outcome area “Economies and industries are adapting and realising opportunities in Scotland’s Just Transition”:

Annex 2 – Initial longlist of indicators

The initial longlist of indicators is listed below. This longlist was shared with stakeholders and revised through engagement as described in section 2.

Initial longlist of indicators for the outcome area “Nature connects across our lands, settlements, coasts and seas”:

Initial longlist of indicators for the outcome area “Communities creating climate-resilient, healthy and equitable places”:

Initial longlist of indicators for the outcome area “Public services are collaborating in effective, inclusive adaptation action”:

Initial longlist of indicators for the outcome area “Economies and industries are adapting and realising opportunities in Scotland’s Just Transition”:

Annex 3 – Workshop participation

The following organisations participated in the workshops.

Organisations represented in the workshop “Nature connects across our lands, settlements, coasts and seas”:

• Centre of Expertise for Waters
• Edinburgh Council
• Forestry and Land
• Glasgow City Council
• Highlands and Islands Airports
• James Hutton Institute
• Marine Directorate of Scottish Government
• National Centre for Resilience
• Nature Scot
• Public Health Scotland
• SEPA
• Scottish Government
• Scottish Water
• Sniffer

Organisations represented in the workshop “Communities creating climate-resilient, healthy and equitable places”:

• FloodRe
• Glasgow City Council
• National Centre for Resilience
• National Resilience Scotland
• Nature Scot
• Public Health Scotland
• Scottish Dynamic Coast
• Scottish Flood Forum
• Scottish Government
• Scottish Land Commission
• Scottish Waters
• Sniffer
• Strathclyde University

Organisations represented in the workshop “Public services are collaborating in effective, inclusive adaptation action”:

• Climate Change Committee
• Glasgow City Council
• MET Office
• Nature Scot
• Network Rail
• Public Health Scotland
• SEPA
• Scottish Flood Forum
• Scottish Government
• Scottish Water
• Sniffer
• Transport Scotland
• University of Strathclyde

Organisations represented in the workshop “Economies and industries are adapting and realising opportunities in Scotland’s Just Transition”:

• Climate Change Committee
• Forestry and Land Scotland
• Glasgow City Council
• Marine Directorate of Scottish Government
• Scottish Government
• SEPA
• Scottish Water
• Sniffer

Annex 4 – Indicator criteria

OUTCOME: Nature connects across our lands, settlements, coasts, and seas

ECOSYSTEM HEALTH AND CONNECTIVITY

Habitat Connectivity Index 

Proportion of surface water bodies classified in good or better condition

Proportion of Scotland’s protected sites in favourable condition

Proportion of soft shorelines affected by coastal erosion

URBAN GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE

Extent of green-blue land cover in urban areas 

Proportion of adults who live within a five-minute walk of their nearest green or blue space

OUTCOME: Communities are creating climate-resilient, healthy and equitable places.

Community awareness around climate change

Community action on climate change

Community flood resilience

Community wellbeing

OUTCOME: Public services are collaborating in effective and inclusive adaptation action

Level of collaboration across public services

Level of adaptation actions across public services

OUTCOME: Economies and industries are adapting and realising opportunities in Scotland’s Just Transition.

Business awareness of climate adaptation

Business preparedness in climate adaptation

Green jobs in the Scottish economy

SUSTAINABLE PRACTICE IN THE AGRICULTURE SECTOR

Agriculture water-use efficiency

Annex 5 – Baseline information for each indicator

© The University of Edinburgh, 2024
Prepared by Ricardo on behalf of ClimateXChange, The University of Edinburgh. All rights reserved.

While every effort is made to ensure the information in this report is accurate, no legal responsibility is accepted for any errors, omissions or misleading statements. The views expressed represent those of the author(s), and do not necessarily represent those of the host institutions or funders.

ClimateXChange
Edinburgh Climate Change Institute
High School Yards
Edinburgh EH1 1LZ

+44 (0) 131 651 4783

info@climatexchange.org.uk

www.climatexchange.org.uk

If you require the report in an alternative format such as a Word document, please contact info@climatexchange.org.uk or 0131 651 4783.

1. 
   

   https://www.gov.scot/isbn/9781836017264 ↑

   
   
2. 
   

   Meeting notes from the four workshops are provided as supplementary materials to this report. ↑

   
   
3. 
   

   Note: the objectives used here are taken from the draft SNAP3. The wording in the final SNAP3 differs slightly. ↑

   
   
4. 
   

   Note: the objectives used here are taken from the draft SNAP3. The wording in the final SNAP differs slightly. ↑

   
   
5. 
   

   Note: the objectives used here are taken from the draft SNAP3. The wording in the final SNAP differs slightly. ↑

   
   
6. 
   

   Note: the objectives used here are taken from the draft SNAP3. The wording in the final SNAP differs slightly. ↑

   
   
7. 
   

   See Office of National Statistics – https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/environmentalaccounts/bulletins/experimentalestimatesofgreenjobsuk/2024#measuring-the-data ↑

   
   

Research completed in February 2024

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7488/era/4864

Executive summary

Only around 11% of occupied homes in Scotland have renewable or low-emission heating systems, with the majority still relying on high-emission sources like gas and oil. To meet Scotland’s net zero greenhouse gas emissions target by 2045, over 2 million homes will need to transition to clean heating systems.

Heat pumps and electric resistive heating are the main clean heating options available today and they are likely to work well in most homes. This project investigates the feasibility of clean heating, especially heat pumps, in challenging home types in Scotland, in terms of practicality and cost effectiveness.

We reviewed academic research, industry literature and case studies, and conducted a combination of surveys and semi-structured interviews with industry experts. We identified the advantages, disadvantages, contradictory evidence and research gaps surrounding the application of clean heating technology in Scotland.

We reviewed previous studies and identified the following challenging dwelling types: older properties from before 1919, rural properties, small properties, and flats and tenements.

Findings

Overall, while there are challenges to implementing heat pumps across different property types, innovative solutions and careful planning can facilitate their adoption and contribute to decarbonising heating systems in Scotland. We found:

• Older properties: Buildings constructed before 1919, often characterised by solid walls and potentially holding protected status, may pose challenges for both insulation upgrades and heat pump installations due to planning constraints and preservation concerns. Whilst it is common to prioritise improving energy efficiency prior to the installation of heat pumps, recent studies have concluded that heat pumps can operate effectively when installed into dwellings that have not undergone energy efficiency upgrades. It is also important to note that while increasing energy efficiency stands as a crucial objective, the structural integrity and overall condition of the building need consideration. It is important to ensure a building is in good condition before installing new heating systems, in particular, repairing structural issues, water ingress and damage. Consequently, any new heating technologies will be more effective and contribute to the building’s overall energy performance.
• Rural properties: Rural areas can present unique challenges due to grid capacity limitations and vulnerability to power cuts. However, heat pump adoption rates are already highest in off-grid regions due to cost savings compared to existing off gas network fuel sources. Evidence shows that heat pumps can operate well in cold climates, with studies evidencing effective performance compared to gas boilers, even at extremely low temperatures. No significant barriers to heat pump adoption have been identified. Heat pumps with additional corrosion protection are available for coastal areas. However, a lack of local contractors, increased servicing costs and higher costs for energy efficiency improvements pose challenges in remote areas, particularly the Scottish islands.
• Small properties: Space constraints, such as limited room for hot water storage and radiator upgrades, present challenges for heat pump installations. No evidence of a quantitative threshold to define ‘small’ was identified. Innovative solutions like compact heat batteries or external hot water storage may offer alternatives.
• Flats and tenements: In addition to the challenges presented above, flats and tenements face difficulties due to constraints on external locations for air source fans, as well as coordinating changes with neighbours and building owners, due to differing tenancy arrangements. Case studies highlight the importance of careful planning and resident input in determining suitable locations. These are similar to the challenges to basic repairs and maintenance of blocks of flats and tenements and to fabric improvements, such as insulation. Fifth generation heat networks, with individual indoor heat pumps supplied by communal ground sources may provide a potential solution.

Recommendations

• Establish evidence for the suitability of air-to-air heating and, if found to be appropriate, provide policy support for certification and installation in homes where it is more cost effective than water-based space heating.
• Policymakers should monitor developments in thermoelectric heat pumps, which may provide radical space savings.
• Explore whether there is a role for hybrid heat pumps in certain circumstances, for hot water only.

Glossary

Introduction

Of the 2.5 million occupied homes in Scotland, only around 11% currently have renewable or very low emission heating systems with the majority still reliant on high-emission energy sources like gas and oil (Scottish Government, 2021b). To meet net zero greenhouse gas emissions targets, over 2 million homes will have to transition to clean heating by 2045 (Scottish Government, 2021a). Clean heating systems have been defined within the consultation on a Heat in Buildings Bill by the Scottish government as:

“Systems – such as heat pumps and heat networks – that don’t produce any greenhouse gas emissions at the point of use” (Scottish Government, 2023b). Bioenergy is not included in this definition due to emissions at the point of use so were not included in this work.

As described, several technologies already exist, each at different stages of adoption. Electric heating was commonplace in homes throughout the 1960s and beyond, resulting in significant improvements over time to make them more efficient and streamline their design. Alternative technologies, such as heat pumps, which also first became commercially available in the 1960’s, are less mainstream in Scotland, but are expected to play a significant role in the decarbonisation of heat in Scotland. The Climate Change Committee has described them as a ‘low regrets’ option (CCC, 2020) and they feature prominently in Scotland’s Heat in Buildings Strategy (Scottish Government, 2021a).

While electricity provided from the grid is currently a mix of renewable and non-renewable energy, it is expected that as renewable power generation such as wind and solar power increases, the emissions associated with electricity will continue to reduce, rendering it an extremely low carbon energy option. To capitalise on this, it will be required that heat in homes provided by gas, oil, and other high emitting energy sources be phased out and replaced by electricity.

The Scottish Government’s Hydrogen Action Plan States “We do not consider that hydrogen will play a central role in the overall decarbonisation of domestic heat and therefore cannot afford to delay action to decarbonise homes this decade through other available technologies. The potential for hydrogen to play a role in heating buildings depends upon strategic decisions by the UK Government that will be made over the coming years and the Scottish Government will continue to urge the UK Government to accelerate decision-making on the role of hydrogen in the gas grid”.

Consequently, this report predominantly focusses on heating systems which utilise electricity as an energy source, specifically heat pumps and their applications. However, it should be recognised that heat networks and each of the clean heating technologies described may play a crucial role in addressing challenging dwelling types.

In this report, we investigate the feasibility, in terms of practical application and cost-effectiveness, of applying clean heating technologies in challenging dwelling types.

Additionally, we explore alternative clean heating options, considering their potential application to the archetypes and examine scenarios where hybrid fossil fuel heating systems may offer a transitional solution, particularly in contexts where the full adoption of renewable technologies poses challenges.

This research focussed on the following building types that we have considered upon review of previous studies as reflecting broadly those that are considered as difficult to decarbonise with clean heating:

• Older properties, especially those built before 1919
• Rural properties
• Small properties
• Flats and tenements of different forms

This project does not consider clean heating challenges that are relevant to all building types, such as skills shortages and capital costs. However, we acknowledge additional challenges such as temporary disruption to households who may need to decant. Particularly when households are without hot water while install work is on-going. This is more acute in winter when losing heating and hot water for a period of time is most impactful to households. This may be perceived as a barrier to adoption, however no evidence was found to corroborate this within this research. Presented below are the results of the evidence review. The research identifies gaps in the available evidence which may inform future research priorities. We also identify where there are best case examples relevant to Scotland.

The evidence reviewed was a combination of grey literature, published research, academic papers, case studies and industry expert feedback through interviews and a survey. For in-situ evidence of how heat pumps are likely to perform in Scotland, we reviewed both large-scale heat pump field trials and small-scale monitoring studies. Whilst, the scope of the research was for both domestic and non-domestic buildings, the majority of identified evidence relates to domestic settings.

Method

A Rapid Evidence Assessment (REA) is a systematic and streamlined approach to reviewing existing literature and evidence on a specific topic within a limited timeframe. This method is often employed when there is a need for quick insights and when a traditional comprehensive systematic review may take too long. The full method for the REA can be found in Appendix 10.1.

Using the keyword searches in relevant databases, 147 sources were identified. The results were screened according to the protocol. Each of the screened sources which were analysed further can be found in the references section of this work. The purpose of the deeper dive was to investigate what evidence was available that heat pumps are a practical, technically feasible and cost-effective clean heating option for hard-to-treat archetypes in Scotland. To enhance the literature review, surveys and interviews were carried out with industry professionals. These interactions aimed to determine whether the research gaps identified in existing literature were mirrored in industry and to explore any opportunities or strategies that the industry has developed to address the identified challenges. The survey and interview questions can be found in Appendices 10.2 and 10.3, respectively.

We received 16 survey responses from:

• Six retrofit advisory/consultancies
• Four registered social landlords
• Five architects/Designers
• One utility company

We conducted 10 structured interviews with:

• Three installers
• Four registered social landlords
• Two architects/designers
• One research institute

Clean heating technologies

This section outlines the main technologies for heating free of emissions at the point of use. Various clean heating technologies are available, adaptable to specific building and occupant needs. Each technology presents unique opportunities and applications, catering to diverse requirements.

Direct electric

Direct electric, or electric resistive heating generates heat by passing electricity through a resistive element, in the same way a kettle works. Examples of direct electric heating are storage heaters, panel heaters, electric boilers, infrared heating, and electric underfloor heating. Direct electric heating is 100% efficient, delivering one unit of energy as heat for every unit of electricity consumed.

Direct electric heating has a low capital cost.

A significant barrier in the uptake of electric heating is the unit cost, which remains expensive when compared with gas (Nesta, 2023a, 2023b). To overcome this, there is the opportunity for UK Government to review the distribution of taxes by reducing the tax on electricity and increasing the tax on high emitting energy sources (Ahmad, 2023; Rosenow, 2022; Sevindik, 2023). This may encourage the uptake of heat pumps and also aid in the renewable energy transition.

Heat pumps

Heat pumps operate by transferring heat from one medium to another. Heat pumps are used in fridges, freezers and air conditioning, as well as in heating systems. Air-source heat pumps use the outside air, while ground-source heat pumps will use water preheated by the ground as the source medium. As the source medium passes through a heat exchanger inside the unit, it causes a refrigerant enclosed in a loop to evaporate into a gas. This gas is compressed, raising its temperature. It then passes through a second heat exchanger, transferring its heat to the inside air, or to water that circulates to radiators, underfloor heating, and to heat up water tanks and so on. The refrigerant, now in a liquid state, then passes through an expansion valve, reducing its pressure and temperature, completing the cycle.

Domestic heat pumps may source heat renewably from the air, ground or water sources such as rivers, lochs, and the sea. They may also use waste heat from industrial sources such as data centres and factories.

The most common form of domestic heat pump in Scotland sources heat from the outdoor air and delivers it through water-filled radiators. Heat is delivered to living spaces through conventional wall-mounted radiators or underfloor heating. This is commonly referred to as an air-source heat pump (ASHP), or air-to-water heat pump (A2W).

‘Air to air’ (A2A) heat pumps are common in commercial applications such as shops and are also installed in domestic settings. Heat is delivered to living spaces by blowing recirculated air over a heat exchanger. During warmer seasons, A2A heat pumps can also be used for cooling, extracting heat from indoor air and releasing it outside. This operates independently of piping and radiators, and one unit will generally service a single room/space.

Ground source heat pumps collect heat from boreholes up to 200 metres deep or from shallow coil collectors buried over large areas. They can achieve higher operating efficiencies because ground temperatures, which sit consistently between 5°C and 10°C, are warmer than air temperatures in the depths of winter. However, these operating efficiencies can be negated by the higher capital costs, especially in buildings with lower heat demands. The primary influence on heat pump efficiency is the difference in temperature between the source (the outside air temperature for ASHP’s), and that of the flow to the indoor emitters. The narrower the gap, the higher the efficiency. In other words, with radiators operating at lower temperatures, e.g., 45°C instead of 65°C, energy use and operating costs will be noticeably lower. Average in situ efficiencies of around 270-300% are reported (HeatpumpMonitor.org, n.d.)

To maintain comfortable room temperatures with this cost-efficient operation, new higher-output radiators and larger pipework may be required. Replacing pipework, if required, is likely to be particularly disruptive. Upgrades to radiators may also be required for condensing boilers to operate in energy efficiency condensing mode. Condensing boilers were mandated in 2005 as a carbon abatement strategy, but Building Standards were never adapted to enforce the changes to the radiators and controls required to achieve the energy efficiency savings. Consequently, boilers often operate significantly below manufacturers efficiency claims. Instead, the upgrades to radiators required for improved efficiency are now being enforced with the transition to heat pumps through the MCS Certification standard for publicly funded installations.

Heat networks

Heat networks distribute heat, and sometimes cooling, from a central origin to multiple properties. Several clean heat network technology options are currently available, for example, communal networks, which serve a single building, and district heating which covers a wider area. Fourth generation heat networks distribute heat in insulated pipes using water at around 65°C (Lund et al., 2021). Fifth generation district heating and cooling (5GDHC) distributes very low temperature heat, between 10°C and 20°C, from sources including boreholes, mine water and industrial waste heat. Individual heat pumps in each property transfer the heat to the home at high temperature or, in summer, transfer heat from the home to the network for cooling.

This variety of options means that individual building owners, as well as local authorities, may drive heat network adoption. This report will include consideration of communal, fifth generation networks as a clean heat option for some property types.

Heat networks are central to the Scottish Government’s Heat in Buildings Strategy with a capacity target of 2.6TWh of output by 2027 and 6TWh by 2030 (Scottish Government, 2021b). Currently heat networks supply 1.18TWh of heat in Scotland to 30,000 homes and 3,000 non-domestic properties (Scottish Government, 2022a). To operate effectively, be economically sustainable, and offer cost-effective solutions, heat networks must be strategically situated. This involves locating them in areas with ample heat demand and density to ensure optimal functionality.

Challenges for clean heating

The following section outlines the findings of this work in determining the suitability of clean heating technologies for challenging dwelling types. The primary findings are generated via the literature review, which are corroborated by the relevant findings in the semi-structured interviews, as highlighted. As discussed in Section 5, there are several low or zero carbon heating technologies available. The purpose of this work is to identify strategies that are both cost effective and practical to apply in the identified challenging dwelling types. Where heat pumps are not determined suitable, alternative technologies have been outlined.

Older properties

In the context of this report, older properties denote traditionally constructed buildings erected prior to 1919 (HES, n.d.). These structures are typically characterised by solid wall construction and may also be designated as protected buildings. This section applies to both houses and tenements.

Heritage and planning

Almost all properties built in Scotland before 1919 have solid walls and often have attractive facades in natural materials, principally sandstone and granite. Pre-1919 properties make up 19% of the Scottish housing stock (Scottish Government, 2023c). Regarding insulation improvements, older properties are often described as ‘hard to treat’ (HES, 2016), because readily available and cost-effective treatments such as cavity wall insulation are not suitable. Furthermore, heritage and planning constraints may prevent some measures such as external wall insulation or increase the cost of others, such as heritage-compliant double glazing.

Obstacles to implementing heat pump technology in older buildings have been identified in building regulations and planning consents, as in the example of a retrofit of a Glasgow tenement block, which was neither listed nor in a conservation area (K. Gibb et al., 2023). This four-story sandstone block, comprising eight small flats and built in 1895, is representative of a large proportion of tenements across Scotland. However, there are important qualifications about the transferability of findings from this project. This was an empty property wholly under the control of a social landlord aiming to fill a retrofitted empty property with social tenants. Planning officers raised concerns with designers on several fronts, such as the installation of external wall insulation, PV panels on the roof, and attaching air source heat pumps to the rear wall. Consequently, new gas boilers were installed in the top floor flats.

The challenges with planning consent outlined above were echoed in the industry survey and interviews. Interviews with installers and housing professionals identified challenges around gaining approval from local authorities and planning officers to proposed changes to increase energy efficiency and green technologies in existing homes, as well as a lack of consistency between different regions which make it difficult to develop repeatable solutions.

Fabric efficiency

Some sources asserted that building fabric efficiency is important for heat pumps to work effectively. However, the rationale for this assertion was often not explained, such as in Carroll et al. (2020). The innovation charity Nesta also made this assertion 2021 (Nesta, 2021), but reversed it 2024 stating:

“It is often claimed that homes need to be well insulated to have a heat pump, but this is largely untrue” (Nesta, 2024).

A WWF report focussed on decarbonisation pathways for Scotland’s housing stock stated that “it is technically possible to install heat pumps in solid wall properties without insulating the solid walls”. However, without insulation upgrades, the heating system upgrade can be more expensive due to the need for larger radiators, pipework and heat pump (Leveque, 2023).

Different household needs in the context of fuel poverty refer to the unique challenges fuel-poor households face in heating their homes due to financial constraints and inefficient systems. These challenges necessitate tailored solutions, like specialised heat pump installations, to ensure energy is used effectively and affordably. Addressing these needs is crucial for reducing overall heat demand, aligning with energy efficiency and sustainability efforts (London Economics, 2023; NEA, 2023a). Where literature describes inefficiencies in heat pump installations without solid wall insulation, this is sometimes referring to the total cost of ownership rather than the pure energy efficiency of the heat pump. For example, the WWF technical report on Scottish housing stock pathways considered capital costs of insulation and heating upgrades (excluding public subsidies), as well as the operating cost over 15 years. It found that the total cost of ownership of a heat pump in a solid walled detached house would be 8% lower over 15 years if solid wall insulation was included in the investment (Palmer and Terry, 2023a).

Total heat required to be delivered from the heating system can increase with heat pumps operating with radiators at lower temperatures, as compared with gas boilers. This is due to the reduced responsiveness of low temperature heating, resulting in the need to maintain temperatures within a narrower range. Essentially a right sized heating system heats up a building more slowly than an oversized boiler. For these reasons, households almost always need to change their heating schedule in order to achieve the same comfort as before (Terry and Galvin, 2023). Modelling found that this is especially important in homes with high thermal mass, such as brick internal walls or solid external walls without insulation on the interior face. Such homes may require up to 20% more heat be delivered from a heat pump, compared with turning off a gas boiler during periods of non-occupancy, such as in households that commute to work. The authors propose that an estimate of increased heating demand would be a useful measure of heat pump readiness, and that the parameters required to assess this should be provided on energy performance certificates.

The long-established ‘fabric first’ approach to energy upgrades prioritises reducing heating demand with insulation and draught proofing before installing clean heating. While the enhancement of energy efficiency stands as a crucial objective, the structural integrity and overall condition of the building necessitate simultaneous consideration. The advantage of this sequence, as opposed to the reverse order, has been to avoid some pipework and radiator upgrades and to reduce the size and cost of the required clean heat sources. However, there is an increasing recognition that, given fabric insulation levels do not influence operational energy efficiency, and depending on individual household needs, decarbonisation may be prioritised ahead of demand reduction to meet emissions targets (Nesta, 2024).

In much of the housing stock potentially no invasive demand reduction is required to meet emissions targets. Instead, the focus should be on electricity pricing and workforce education to enable good installation standards (Eyre et al., 2023). The UK Government’s Review of Electricity Market Arrangements (BEIS, 2022) is considering changes that would significantly reduce the cost of operating heat pumps, such as decoupling electricity pricing from volatile wholesale gas prices.

Rural properties

Within this work, rural refers to properties located off the gas grid which rely on alternative heat sources such as oil boilers to heat their homes.

Many off gas grid properties use electric resistive heating, which is a clean heating technology, but which partially accounts for higher rates of fuel poverty in rural areas (Scottish Government, 2023c) due to the higher unit cost of electricity compared to gas which leads to higher running costs. Therefore, more energy efficient heat pumps are a potential solution for fuel poverty in off gas grid areas.

Rural dwellings face a unique set of challenges compared to those found in urban settings.

Electricity network

The electricity network is vulnerable to extreme weather. In 2021, 40,000 households were left without power for three days in northern England and north east Scotland following Storm Arwen (OFGEM, 2023). This review did not find evidence establishing whether electric heating is more vulnerable in off gas grid area than on-gas areas. It should be noted that all types of heating – other than solid fuel burners require an electrical supply including gas, oil and biomass boilers.

Grid capacity is expected to be a potential constraint to the electrification of heat in all areas. The grid constraint is alleviated, and infrastructure investments can be postponed, if demand is reduced with insulation and if heat pump efficiency is improved, for example through the use of ground source heat (DELTA, 2018). Off gas grid housing often has the advantage of being built at low density, providing greater opportunity for the use of ground source heat pumps. However, ground source heat pump has a higher capital investment, and consideration should be given to share ground source networks also known as fifth generation heat networks.

Another strategy for reducing or postponing the need for network infrastructure investments is demand levelling. Time of use tariffs, the Demand Flexibility Service and the falling cost of domestic batteries provide incentives for consumer behaviour changes and automated smart demand response systems which can shift some electrical loads out of peak demand periods. Off gas grid areas have the same opportunity to benefit from these incentives as on gas areas.

Cold climates

Concerns have been raised about heat pump efficiency in cold climates (Simons, 2023). Field studies, however, demonstrate that with proper design, heat pumps maintain efficiency even at temperatures as low as -10°C, and can still be effective in conditions down to -30°C. (D. Gibb et al., 2023). It is crucial to understand that the effectiveness of heat pumps is not determined by the type of building or its insulation level. Efficiency is consistent across different environments and for buildings requiring more heat, due to size or less insulation, a larger heat pump can be employed to meet the demand effectively. This adaptability ensures heat pumps can provide efficient heating solutions in a wide range of settings and climates. This finding is applicable to all areas of Scotland but can be particularly relevant to rural areas which can face more severe winters and lower temperatures.

Evidence of adoption

Although challenges are present for rural homes, nevertheless the highest rates of heat pump installation are found in off gas grid areas (Nesta, 2023c). Analysis of the MCS installation database showed the UK’s highest adoption rates are in the Highlands & Islands, rural Wales and Cornwall. This is likely because significant operating cost savings are achieved with heat pumps, compared with oil and direct electric heating due to the high efficiencies of heat pumps (see Section 5.2).

Islands and Coastal areas

Research into clean heating for new housing in island communities found no consumer barriers or region-specific capital barriers to heat pump adoption (ClimateXChange, 2022). Additional anti-corrosion treatments are included in coastal locations. However, a lack of local specialist contractors was considered a constraint on installation rates and increased servicing costs were incurred due to mainland contractor travel costs.

Small properties

This section considers barriers to heat pump adoption related to indoor space, including both houses and flats. There is no formal definition of ‘small properties’ and categorisation differs in the literature so we have used a broad definition to include properties that are identified as having space limitations since this is what limits the uptake of heating technologies that require more space than existing systems.

Hot water storage

In Scotland, 80% of dwellings currently have boilers and most of these are combi type, producing hot water on demand. Homes with combi boilers do not have space committed to hot water storage. Unlike a combination (‘combi’) gas or oil boiler, heat pumps and direct electric systems generally do not supply instant hot water. Therefore, it is necessary to have a system in place for storing energy to meet the occupant’s hot water demand. The system usually takes the form of a hot water cylinder, the volume of which is driven by the size of the property and number of occupants. This calls for an evaluation of alternative hot water storage systems and a general evaluation of consumer barriers in terms hot water storage.

There is also the opportunity to think more broadly in terms of energy storage and review the viability of communal hot water storage externally.

Finding space for a hot water cylinder is one of the most significant consumer barriers in all homes and is particularly acute in small properties (Nesta, 2021; Palmer and Terry, 2023a; Scottish Government, 2022b).

In an analysis of the Scottish Building stock, homes with less than 18m² of floor area per habitable room were assumed to be unsuitable for individual heat pump adoption due to the requirement for a hot water cylinder (Element Energy, 2020). This threshold, which equates to 90 m² for a dwelling with 3 bedrooms and two reception rooms, was not explained. Since the average floor area of Scottish homes is 97m² (Scottish Government, 2023c) this threshold, if significant, takes in a large proportion of the housing stock.

One technical solution for small properties is compact phase change material heat batteries, such as those produced by Sunamp. These contain a material which is melted when heated by a heat pump, solar thermal panels or internal resistive element. It heats water instantly when a tap is opened, eventually solidifying as it cools. Heat batteries can be up to four times smaller than equivalent hot water cylinders.

Another solution is to locate hot water storage outside. This strategy was trialled in seven small houses by National Energy Action (NEA, 2023b). In this system a compact heat battery is located outside in an insulated enclosure adjacent to the heat pump.

Electrical batteries in conjunction with instant hot water taps and electrical showers may be a feasible solution where hot water demand is relatively low. Lithium-ion batteries can have roughly double the energy density of water storage, so could be effective in space-constrained cases (Energy Saving Trust, 2017). The cost of lithium-ion batteries has reduced dramatically in recent years (BloombergNEF, 2023) new battery technologies such as flow batteries are now emerging in domestic applications (PV magazine, 2023).

An interim solution, highlighted in interviews with housing officers, is to enable decarbonisation of space heating would be to allow the retention of combis for hot water production only. Thus, a heat pump would cover 100% of the space heating requirement. Over time, households may find space for hot water storage, potentially incentivised by the high unit cost of hot water or further technical solutions may emerge.

Radiators

In most UK homes, radiators are currently undersized to meet industry convention comfort standards with efficient gas boiler operation (BEIS, 2021). Consequently, either boilers must heat radiators to higher temperatures or rooms are cold.

In order to meet comfort standards and achieve high operating efficiencies with heat pumps, heating water temperature is typically needs to be lower with a heat pump than with gas or oil boilers. This means larger radiators and changes to pipework are often part of a heat pump installation (BEIS, 2021; Nesta, 2021; Zhuang et al., 2023).

In some cases, dependent upon ease of access, replacing undersized radiators could be fairly trivial, (Leveque, 2023), however in some, space constraints such as the wish to preserve space for bookshelves, may present a consumer barrier (Nesta, 2021; Wade, 2020).

Designing the heating system to operate at a higher temperature can mitigate the need for radiator upgrades. The capital savings may balance out operational cost increases over the life of the system (Palmer and Terry, 2023). Nonetheless, with the availability of modern heat pumps, designers can specify operating temperatures similar to the outgoing heating system which could mitigate the need for radiator upgrades.

Cost effectiveness

In small properties with low heat demands the capital costs of an air-to-water heat pump may not be economic. Alternative technologies can be considered.

Air-to-air heat (A2A) pumps have significantly lower capital costs than air-to-water and may be an attractive solution where there is no existing water-based system (Lowes, 2023). They therefore provide an option for addressing fuel poverty in homes with existing direct electric systems.

A further benefit of A2A heat pumps is that they can also provide cooling from the same capital investment in homes that are at risk of overheating in summer (Khosravi et al., 2023). Air to air systems account for a large part of Europe’s lead over the UK in heat pump installation rates, although much of this is for heating in Southern Europe (Nesta, 2023d).

Infrared is proposed by manufacturers as a clean heat solution with low capital cost. Its use in industrial settings such as warehouses with high ceilings is well established (Anwar Jahid et al., 2022; Cao et al., 2023; Kylili et al., 2014). However, there is lack of evidence on energy efficiency benefits over simple resistive heating (Brown et al., 2016) with studies focussing on high ceilings (Roth et al., 2007). Other studies have identified discomfort concerns due to asymmetric temperatures (Corsten, 2021). By reducing the overall heat demand of a building and targeting only certain areas, while you may use less energy, overall, the building will be colder than if you maintained a constant air temperature. As a result, damp and mould could become more prevalent. In general, only things which are hit by the IR radiation will get hot although some heat will be emitted by the things which get hot and heat up the surroundings (Lowes Richard, 2022).

Where heat pumps remain impractical for small properties storage heaters are the most cost-effective option available today. In modelling of total cost of ownership, storage heaters are the optimal clean heating solution in some situations (Palmer and Terry, 2023a).

Flats and tenements

Flats and tenements are defined here as any building that contains multiple dwellings. This includes, four-in-a-blocks, low rise blocks, high rise blocks and tenements.

In the 2011 Census, it was found that 36% of the Scottish population lived in flats, making up the highest percentage among dwelling types (NRS, 2011). Around a third of tenement flats were built prior to 1919, another third between 1919-1982, and the final third after 1982. Many tenement flats are in a state of critical disrepair, particularly those built before 1919 (Built Environment Forum Scotland, 2019). The Scottish Parliamentary Working Group on Tenement Maintenance has been meeting since March 2018 with the purpose of establishing solutions to aid, assist and compel owners of tenement properties to maintain their buildings. Recommendations include establishing periodic inspections and maintenance sinking funds. This is important for energy efficiency and clean heating to be implemented in flats. (Scotland, n.d.)

Location of heat pump

Typically, air-source heat pumps are installed externally, such as in garden areas, driveways, or other outdoor spaces around the building. Unlike houses, flats and tenements often lack private gardens. Literature cited the lack of external space as a challenge when looking to install heat pumps (Nesta, 2021; Scottish Government, 2022b; Southside Housing Association, 2020).

The Scottish Government undertook a case study on the Dunbeg Phase 3 project in Oban which installed air source heat pumps into 74 flats (Scottish Government, 2022b). A primary finding highlighted the importance of considering a suitable external location for heat pumps specifically, relating to shared gardens. This challenge has not been expanded upon in the Dunbeg case study as it is likely a planning constraint similar to that experienced during the retrofit of a tenement block in Glasgow (K. Gibb et al., 2023). In this case, the aspiration was to utilise heat pumps that were attached to the external wall. However, planning officers determined that heat pumps could only be installed if they were located in the back communal garden on the ground and were fenced off. Consequently, gas boilers were installed in the top two floors.

Southside Housing Association trialled the installation of air source heat pumps to a selection of flats (Southside Housing Association, 2020). The installation work was informed by surveys and feedback from the residents. At the outset, the drying area within each floor of the flats was selected as the location for the heat pump. However, further consultation with residents determined that the preference was for the heat pumps to be installed on the individual flat balconies. This strategy presented some challenges in the beginning, such as difficulty pumping condensate water back to the main drain and heat loss through the external pipework. As a pilot project, the lessons learned should be applied to future projects, having successfully demonstrated alternative locations for flats with limited external space.

Air source heat pumps offer a versatile heating solution for multi-storey buildings. Ground-mounted units are ideal for efficiently heating ground-level and first-floor flats, using tailored circulation systems to distribute heat effectively. For higher floors, split system configurations are beneficial, allowing refrigerant lines to run vertically with greater ease and efficiency than insulated water lines, though this setup requires additional indoor equipment. Additionally, in buildings where rooftop access is available, heat pumps can be strategically installed on roofs or in loft spaces, providing effective heating coverage from the base to the top of the building.

Another option for flats is the adoption of either shared external heat pump units, such as at Hillpark in Glasgow (Star Renewable Energy, n.d.). Such systems have been demonstrated as being more cost effective than individual units whilst also consuming less space (Palmer and Terry, 2023). Agreement between different owners and tenants can be difficult to attain, especially where there are multiple owners and tenure types.

Options exist that enable an air source heat pump to be located fully within the building. Exhaust air heat pumps form part of the ventilation system and draw heat from exhausted stale air. Further heat is drawn directly from outside. They are most readily suited to energy efficient buildings (Energy Saving Trust, n.d.).

Individual room air to air heat pumps could provide further low capital, easy installation options. These systems are gaining popularity in some settings with existing ducted air systems, for example in flats in the United States (Gradient) and in UK hotel rooms (Powrmatic).

Clean hot water heating could be provided independently on the hot water system by using hot water heat pumps which either using excess internal heat or ventilation exhaust air or outdoor heat to generate hot water.

Shared ground source heat networks, also known as fifth generation heat networks, provide a clean heating solution that does not need equipment to be located above ground outdoors. Ground temperature heat drawn from boreholes is shared across homes through a network. Individual water to water heat pumps inside each property supply heat to space and to hot water storage.

In common with the challenges of addressing communal maintenance, the main remaining barrier to heat pump adoption in flats is the challenge of gaining agreement to, and coordinating works, between all owners of the building. These are similar to the challenges to basic repairs and maintenance blocks of flats and to fabric improvements such as insulation. An expert Short Life Working Group presented recommendations for addressing these barriers in 2023 (Scottish Government, 2023a). These centred on whole building approaches and further amendments to the Tenements Act.

Future Developments

This review has found that with careful consideration, clean heating technologies are available to suit challenging dwelling types, though there are factors to consider including running cost, space constraints and need for communal agreement. There remains the opportunity to address barriers and support delivery through further technical and policy development as well as sharing best practice by gathering more evidence from pilots on key aspects such as managing costs, disruption levels and post occupancy evaluations.

Application of existing technologies

This review has reported on a variety of technologies in different forms of application. It shows that there is no panacea, or one-size-fits-all solution for clean heating. Further consideration is required to support the finding that appropriate technologies are available for challenging dwelling types. These recommendations are provided as a cumulation of findings from the literature review, industry interviews and the report authors experience.

As described in section 6, air-to-air heat pumps may provide a cost-effective means of providing low-cost clean heat in small dwellings. However, there is only weak evidence for the energy efficiency of such systems. For related reasons, there is no certification standard to support publicly funded air-to-air installations. Policy makers should consider commissioning field or laboratory studies to clarify the effectiveness of air-to-air heat pumps.

The role of cascade heat pump systems such as exhaust air heat pump and hot water heat pumps should be considered further. These systems use both outdoor air and internal air to provide heating and hot water at different temperature levels. Further research is required to determine appropriate applications and the required skills and policy support.

There is also the opportunity to think more broadly in terms of energy storage and review the viability of communal hot water storage externally, this would be particularly well suited to flats and tenements or small homes in rural areas which may have limited internal area.

Fifth generation heat networks

Besides wide-area fourth generation heat networks, which operate at around 65°C, this report has covered other heat network configurations including communal air source heat pumps for flats. However, the potential for shared ambient loop networks, also known as fifth generation heating and cooling networks, to serve Scottish challenging dwelling types is not well reported in the independent literature. Further research in this area is merited.

Improving installed heat pump performance

As described in the context of older buildings in section 6, with some households and buildings it may be appropriate to decarbonise without any new insulation measures. However, while it’s possible to install any heating system at any time, it’s advised to first enhance the building’s fabric. Rather, it is more important to focus on design and installation standards to maximise in situ efficiency (Eyre et al, 2023).

Workforce education should be directed towards better system design. This concerns the right-sizing of heat pumps, radiators and pipework. This enables heat pumps to operate in their high efficiency ‘sweet spot’ for more of the heating season. This can often reduce capital costs and avoid unnecessary radiator and pipework upgrades.

Furthermore, a better understanding is needed about whether demand reduction and energy-saving measures can enable or speed up the deployment of technologies such as heat pumps, for example, by reducing the size and cost of equipment required, smoothing out peaks in electrical demand, and reducing operating costs.

Emerging technology

Domestic heat pumps use the vapour compression cycle. An alternative heat pump technology, the Peltier Effect is used in thermoelectric heat pumps. In these devices voltage applied to a semiconductor device creates a temperature difference between the two sides of the device, supporting thermal energy collection from renewable sources (Tritt, 2002). Thermoelectric heat pumps, known for their application in industries and portable devices like camping fridges, offer unique benefits for challenging building environments, especially smaller spaces such as flats or compact homes. Their key advantages include a lack of working fluid, eliminating concerns over global warming potential, absence of moving parts which ensures durability and minimal maintenance, and a compact size that allows for flexible installation options. Unlike traditional systems, thermoelectric units do not necessarily require external components, making them an ideal choice for locations where external installations are impractical. This makes thermoelectric heat pumps a versatile and eco-friendly option for urban living spaces where space constraints and building regulations might limit the use of conventional heating systems.

Developments in industry indicate that thermoelectric heat pumps may be suited to heating dwellings. TE Conversion, based in Glasgow, discussed with the author how they expect to test prototypes operationally in domestic settings in 2024.

Emerging technology once recognised as a ‘mature’ technology, service and maintenance costs are not anticipated to be any higher than for fossil fuel (or biomass) equipment as the intervention period should be longer. Annual service costs whether for gas boilers or heat pumps are likely to be comparable.

Conclusions

We conducted a review of existing literature and evidence to assess the feasibility of heat pumps as a clean heating option for building types considered difficult to decarbonise. We found that with careful consideration and effective design, clean heating technology can be applied to all types of challenging dwellings.

However, a key caveat of this report is the need to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of implementing clean heating technology in varied circumstances. Without a comprehensive cost analysis of comparable solutions, it is difficult to determine their economic viability. Therefore, future research should prioritise conducting whole-life cycle cost analyses of different heat pump applications and scenarios, ideally based on industry data wherever available.

The appendices include four key literature pieces that may complement the findings of this report, offering a comprehensive understanding of the challenges and opportunities associated with challenging dwelling types and clean heating technologies.

Recommendations

Based on the findings of the report, the authors recommend the Scottish Government explore the following:

• Conduct in-depth case studies, evaluations and surveys on the application of clean heating technology in challenging dwelling types to extract valuable socio-technical lessons learned and develop repeatable solutions.
• Future studies that facilitate consistent appraisal and comparison in heat pump evaluations.
• Investigate zero carbon back-up options for areas with vulnerable above ground distribution networks.
• Consider the recommendations of the Working Group on Tenements – mandatory owners associations, periodic inspections and maintenance sinking funds. This is important for energy efficiency and clean heating to be implemented in flats.
• Investigate alternatives to hot water storage in flats and small properties and a general evaluation of consumer barriers in terms of hot water storage systems. For example, Community Energy Storage systems.
• Establishing evidence for the energy efficiency of air-to-air heating and, if found to be appropriate, providing policy support for certification and installation in homes where it is more cost effective than water-based space heating.

In addition, the research team identified several financial and regulatory barriers for Scottish Government to consider:

• Monitoring developments in thermoelectric heat pumps, which may provide radical space savings.
• MCS certification for air-to-air heat pumps or support for communal ambient loops with individual water-to-water heat pumps for flats.
• Hybrid heat pumps where fossil fuels are used only for hot water.
• Resolving inconsistency in planning guidance for heritage buildings and conservation areas.

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Corsten, A., 2021. A comparative performance assessment of infrared heating panels and conventional heating solutions in Dutch residential buildings.

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Appendix

Methodology

A Rapid Evidence Assessment (REA) is a methodology which enables a researcher(s) to undertake a systematic review of existing literature related to a specific research question and provides a method to search and critically appraise relevant literature. To further complement this, a deeper analysis of the gaps identified in the literature review was undertaken through a combination of surveys and semi-structured interviews with industry experts.

A rapid evidence assessment is split up into seven key stages:

1. Protocol development
2. Evidence search
3. Search screening
4. Evidence extraction
5. Critical assessment of evidence
6. Synthesis of results
7. Communication of findings

Each of these stages and their methods have been discussed in more detail below.

Protocol development

The purpose of the protocol development is to develop a search strategy and formally detail the methodology. Developing a protocol distinguishes Rapid Evidence Assessments (REA’s) reviews with less structure. This ensures that the evidence review (ER) process is rigorous and transparent. It also facilitates communication among the User, Steering Group, and Review Team, laying out how the review will be carried out. The Review Team bears the responsibility for developing the review protocol, active input and approval from the User and Steering Group are essential components of the review process.

Background

Approximately 20% of Scotland’s total greenhouse gas emissions originate from homes and workplaces. In pursuit of climate objectives, the Scottish Government has established targets, aiming to transition over one million homes to clean heating systems by 2030, with the broader goal of achieving clean heating for all homes by 2045. Over one third of Scotland’s housing stock comprises tenement properties, characterised by factors such as accessibility issues, space limitations, ownership complexities, and structural challenges, which can pose difficulties in installing clean heating technology. Although several clean heat technologies exist, heat pumps are expected to play a significant role in the decarbonisation of heat in Scotland. The purpose of this work is to assess whether heat pumps represent a practical, technically viable, and cost-effective clean heating option for various dwelling types, including flats, tenements, and other hard-to-treat archetypes. 

Primary question

What evidence is there that heat pumps are a practical, technically feasible and cost-effective clean heating option for Scottish flats, tenements, and other hard-to-treat archetypes?

Population: Flats, tenements, and other hard-to-treat buildings in climates like Scotland’s.

Impact: Clean heating technologies

Comparator: Existing fossil fuel heating system

Outcome: Practical, technically feasible, cost effective

Secondary question

What evidence is there that dwelling types may be suited to other ZDEH technology such as direct electric heating.  Which dwellings are suited to non-ZDEH hybrid heating systems? 

Evidence search

The search strategy outlined above was utilised to carry out the evidence search. Boolean Operators, including words like AND, OR, NOT, or AND NOT allow the combination or exclusion of keywords, leading to more precise and productive results. This streamlined approach is designed to save time and effort by eliminating irrelevant hits that would otherwise need to be reviewed before being discarded.

Google searches are restricted to searching 32 words at a time; therefore 3 keyword searches were undertaken. As such the core searches performed across the three key databases can be seen in the table below. These were duplicated in each of the chosen search engines, Google, Google Scholar and Edinburgh Napier University academic library.

The keyword searches are outlined below:

Table 1: keyword search

Search results were then exported to an excel file. Duplicate results between the three searches were removed.

Search screening

Search result screening ensures that only the most relevant results are taken forward to the evidence extraction phase. Inclusion and exclusion criteria, in this case RAG analysis, was utilised was then used to carry out this initial screening.

Table 2: boundary conditions

Evidence extraction

1. Key observation/particular area of interest
2. Evidence overview
3. Key data

Once the initial search screening had been completed, we analysed the searches for further information to determine their alignment with clean heating in Scotland for challenging dwelling types. The following information was extracted or each piece of evidence:

Critical assessment

The critical assessment is the part of the REA which is used to determine the robustness and relevancy of the information that has been extracted in the preceding stages.

Assessing relevancy

The initial step in the critical assessment involves assessing the relevancy of evidence in connection to clean heating in hard-to-treat archetypes. The following has been considered:

• The appropriateness of the method employed in the evidence to clean heating in Scotland for hard-to-treat property types.
• The relevance of the evidence to hard-to-treat archetypes in Scotland.
• The relevance of the intervention under scrutiny.
• The relevance of the measured outcome.

Synthesis of results

This stage involves the systematic analysis and integration of findings from the gathered evidence to draw conclusions or make recommendations. This stage typically follows the data extraction phase and precedes the final reporting or dissemination of findings.

Communication of findings

The final step in the REA communicates the findings in a report and provides appropriate recommendations and conclusions.

Industry survey questions

The survey was conducted through Survey Monkey specifically targeting the HeatSource network, a collaborative low carbon heat knowledge hub, hosted by BE-ST on behalf of Scottish Enterprise. The survey was distributed to 311 people with a return rate of 16. The return of 5% although low provided some insights. The low return in part could be due to the timing, the survey was distributed in December.

Survey questions

1. Provide your view on the suitability of electric heating for challenging property types based on your experience. If unsuitable, please provide the reasons why. As far as possible provide values or data to support your views.
2. For which challenging property types have you considered, assessed, designed or installed clean heating systems? Select all which apply.
   • Multi-storey flats
   • Tenements (any age)
   • Old/heritage properties pre-1919
   • Four in a block
   • Off gas grid properties
   • Small properties of less than 80m²
   • None of the above (please specify other)
3. What experience do you have or have considered in retrofitting any of the following technologies?
   • Instant electric heating systems, for example, electric boilers, CPSU, infrared, panel heaters
   • Off peak direct electric, for example storage heaters
   • Air source heat pumps
   • Ground source heat pumps
   • Other (please specify)
   • None of the above
4. Thinking about the heating projects you have been involved in, what was your desired outcome/ motivation for action? You can define this further in the space provided.
   • Achieve a reduction in operating costs
   • Achieve parity operating cost
   • Reduction in fuel poverty
   • Achieve reduction in carbon emissions
   • Improving occupant thermal comfort
   • Achieve a reduction in cost savings for periodic replacement
   • Where possible provide supporting figures/data. (for example, reduce carbon emissions associated with a property by x%, increase thermal comfort for tenants) Define your desired outcome, ideally with numbers. Please specify below.
5. Thinking about projects you have been involved in where clean heating systems were considered, did they go ahead?
   • Yes
   • No
6. Did you achieve your desired outcomes? Where possible, provide figures or data citing actual versus target for outcomes.
   • Yes – why?
   • No – why?
7. If you have abandoned attempts to install a clean heating system, why was this?
   • Capital cost
   • Expected operating cost
   • Installation barriers
   • Occupant/user barriers – e.g., concerns with heat pump controls
   • Lack of supply chain
   • Lack of occupier engagement/support
   • Lack of funding
   • Other
   • Please use the space below to elaborate on the reasons and context for the decision to not proceed with a planned installation.
8. If you are an installer, what is important to successful outcomes in clean heating installations in challenging property types?
9. In your opinion, what additional evidence is needed to increase confidence in deploying clean heating in challenging property types?
10. In your opinion what are the key barriers to increasing deployment of clean heating in challenging property types?

Semi-structured interviews

Interviewees were identified by the project report authors as key industry experts with experience of clean heating technology. In total ten interviews were conducted with installers, architects, and housing professionals. The interviews were an addition to the literature review process to help draw out key findings in areas such as barriers to adoption and potential solutions to deliver clean heating technology at scale.

Sample questions altered slightly dependent on background and job role.

1. What is your experience of retrofitting zero direct emissions heating systems?

2. What barriers do you perceive with difficult to treat archetypes?

3. What did your previous research reveal to you about ZDEH systems?

4. What is your opinion on alternative solutions (using a table of options)

5. Why do you think retrofitting ZDEH systems in difficult to treat homes is not being done at scale?

6. What are the key things you need to see to enable difficult to treat properties being retrofitted?

Case examples

Using our sources protocol and deeper dive the four sources below were identified as most insightful in terms of the research question. Although it must be stressed all four still have gaps in findings.

© Published by BE-ST, 2024 on behalf of ClimateXChange. All rights reserved.

While every effort is made to ensure the information in this report is accurate, no legal responsibility is accepted for any errors, omissions or misleading statements. The views expressed represent those of the author(s), and do not necessarily represent those of the host institutions or funders.

info@climatexchange.org.uk

+44(0)131 651 4783

@climatexchange_

www.climatexchange.org.uk

May 2024

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7488/era/4854

Executive summary

Project aims

The Scottish Government’s Heat in Buildings (HiB) Strategy commits all Scottish homes to be net zero by 2045. However, in line with the commitment to a Just Transition, the Government recognises that personal circumstances may, in some cases, make it more challenging for people to meet the requirements of the proposed Heat in Buildings Standard. Personal circumstances include vulnerability criteria related to the occupiers of the dwelling, such as disability, age, or low-income.

This study reviewed how regulations, both in the UK and internationally, have accounted for personal circumstances. Provision made for vulnerable groups for these circumstances included exemptions, extensions or abeyances, support mechanisms such as financial support, amendments or alterations to the standard.

This research will support the Scottish Government’s development of the proposed standard, through considering personal circumstances in domestic buildings, specifically focusing on owner occupied homes and the private rented sector.

We also investigated the impact of including personal circumstances in the regulation. The review has covered relevant low-carbon heating, domestic energy efficiency, housing and transport regulations. Flexibility is often provided within operational regimes without it being explicitly specified within the legislation, and this flexibility was not captured by this study. We also highlight new emerging policy areas to support consideration of how similar regulations could work in Scotland.

Summary of key findings

The study identified 18 international examples of personal circumstances being included in regulations. Six stakeholders from consumer organisations, professional housing sector, government departments and policy groups were interviewed to provide insight on regulations identified through the study. Our key findings are:

• There is limited evidence of including personal circumstances in regulations.
• The most common personal circumstances identified relate to those with a low income. Several regulations across Europe and Canada offer additional financial support for low-income households to undertake energy efficiency renovations or to upgrade to clean heating systems.
• Similar examples from the Netherlands, Switzerland and the USA exempt properties from upgrading to a clean heating system if the cost of doing so is prohibitive or if the lifetime savings were too low.
• Germany allows exemptions for clean heating regulation for owner-occupiers over 80 years of age, if they live in a building of up to six flats.
• Most stakeholders were aware of funding or support for low-income households, but several noted they had not considered including other personal circumstances within regulations.
• A proposal in Flanders aims to introduce a decision tree for personal circumstances, which includes significant life events to excuse residents for not meeting the standard. If implemented, this could allow application for a time extension to meet energy efficiency and clean heat standards in properties based on specific personal circumstances such as divorce or death in the family.
• Stakeholders were concerned that including personal circumstances in the proposed HiB Standard would risk people losing out on the benefits of the energy transition such as reducing energy costs, greater energy efficiency and warmer homes.
• There were concerns regarding a lack of clarity on how including personal circumstances would work in practice and the potential for an additional administrative burden on both residents and those administering schemes.
• Further examples of personal circumstances within regulation include Low Emission Zones across the UK, which provide exemptions for vehicles owned by those with a disability. However, drawing direct parallels to energy efficiency and clean heating regulations is challenging due to the specifics of how the regulation works.

Recommendations and value to a policy audience

Should the Scottish Government decide to implement new regulations that include personal circumstances, the key recommendations are:

• More thorough consideration of the potential benefits and risks associated with including personal circumstances – The benefits have largely been assumed but they require further investigation. The impact of including personal circumstances requires further consideration to understand which groups are most likely to benefit. Additionally, the needs of different vulnerable groups require greater clarity to ensure that the introduction of any flexibilities best meet these needs. This includes owner-occupiers, tenants in the private rented sector and communities connecting to heat networks to determine the likely positive impact. The risks of losing out on the benefits of the transition should also be considered.
• Consider additional support and flexibility – In addition to providing financial support to cover the cost of the measure, consider providing further support or alternative accommodation for low-income households during disruptive works.
• Ongoing monitoring of policy and regulation developments in similar countries, particularly in Flanders.

Glossary

Introduction

This report provides findings from review of a wide range of international regulations that include provision for personal circumstances. Some personal circumstances are legally protected characteristics such as age, disability and pregnancy. However, the definition of personal circumstances is broad and can include wide ranging factors such as income level, health conditions (including disabilities), ownership status of property, location (which can affect outside temperatures), household composition and different cultural practices. These characteristics could affect the ability of different groups to comply with regulations.

The aim of the review is to inform the Scottish Government’s decision-making on future regulations regarding decarbonising residential buildings in Scotland and what types of provisions could be made to take into account personal circumstances. The review covers a variety of regulations that make provision for personal circumstances within different countries and regions that are considered to have relevance for the Scottish Government.

Policy context

The Heat in Buildings (HiB) Strategy commits all of Scotland’s buildings, including residential, to net zero by 2045 (Scottish Government, 2021). A proposal for the HiB Standard (“the standard” for the purposes of this report), comprising a minimum energy efficiency standard and a prohibition on polluting heating systems, was recently consulted on by the Scottish Government (Scottish Government, 2023).

The consultation proposed a prohibition on polluting heating systems from 2045, thereby requiring all homes to switch to a clean heating system. A clean heating system is defined as one with zero direct emissions at the point of use. The Scottish Government’s consultation proposed that private landlords must meet the minimum energy efficiency standard by 2028 and owner occupiers by 2033. Owner occupiers that install a clean heating system will not be mandated to improve their energy efficiency, however it is preferable, for the reasons outlined below.

The benefits of improving the EE performance of homes, particularly regarding the insulation levels and the resulting improved thermal performance are well established. Residents are likely to experience improved comfort and lower bills. EE schemes have a long history in Scotland and the UK, with significant numbers of properties now having good levels of insulation. However, some properties are still behind, with over 37% of private sector homes in Scotland having minimal levels of loft insulation and 47% no form of wall insulation (Scottish Government, 2024).

Clean heating is essential to meet decarbonisation targets and for homes with an improved thermal performance (through meeting EE standards) the expectation is that residents will not experience higher bills following a change to their heating system. The consultation on a HiB Bill also proposed two early action triggers for upgrading a heating system ahead of 2045; these are after the purchase of a property (with a grace period of 2 to 5 years), and when a heat network becomes available (Scottish Government, 2023).

The Scottish Government recognises that there are numerous reasons why properties remain poorly insulated, including technical, cost, practical and personal circumstances. EE retrofit measures and clean heating system installations are sometimes associated with disruption in the home which can be a major barrier for residents. For example, a heat pump installation will typically take 2-4 days to complete (LCP Delta, 2022) and can be disruptive to residents. The associated disruption is the main barrier to upgrading to a heat pump (LCP Delta, Energy Systems Catapult, Oxford Computer Consultants, 2022). This disruption could potentially have a greater impact on those in vulnerable situations.

There is recognition that personal circumstances could make it more challenging for some people to meet the proposed standard due to real or perceived barriers. Personal circumstances are relevant for both energy efficiency (EE) and clean heating requirements.

To ensure fairness, the Scottish Government has proposed (in its consultation on a Heat in Buildings Bill) that the Bill (Scottish Government, 2023) will:

• Ahead of 2045, exempt those who can’t, or perhaps should not have to, meet the HiB Standard.
• Provide extra time for those who need it to meet the standard or require that people comply with a modified version of the standard which considers their building’s characteristics or unique circumstances.
• Make it simple for people to appeal where they believe the requirements are incorrect or unfair.

The new bill has been central to a consultation process which closed in March 2024 (Scottish Government, 2023)

Research aims and scope

This project sought to identify examples of regulation which incorporated personal circumstances from a broad range of international regulations, including energy efficiency and low carbon, housing and transport policies. Regulations were reviewed to determine how suitable alterations, extensions or exemptions have been included to accommodate personal circumstances in different types of regulation. This includes what measures have been used or proposed to provide support (such as financial, deadline extensions) to assist with full or partial compliance with the regulations. This will inform Scottish Government decision-making around future proposals, including if and how to incorporate personal circumstances into new retrofit policy.

Overview of methodology

The key focus of this project was to identify regulatory examples, both within the UK and internationally, that include personal circumstances as a basis for extensions, abeyances or exemptions. We anticipated the number of examples specific to heat and energy efficiency regulations would be low. Our approach therefore drew from a broad base that included other sectors. This approach ensured we cast a wide net to identify a diverse range of types of personal circumstances and different ways these have been accounted for in regulations. To ensure all relevant examples were identified, our approach included a comprehensive evidence search and multi-method approach:

• A desk-based study: We reviewed data from internal reports and databases, including a previous international review for ClimateXChange on heat and energy efficiency policy (LCP Delta, 2023). Additionally, we searched publicly available policy databases and conducted tailored internet searches to identify academic, policy and other research sources.
• Consulted with in-house expert colleagues: this supported our research and ensured we focused our searches in areas that were likely to provide value.
• An online call for evidence: This was posted to LinkedIn via our company page which has over 10,000 followers to encourage stakeholders to share relevant regulatory examples.
• Interviews with external stakeholders: We completed interviews with six external stakeholders to discuss how regulatory examples had been implemented and the impact of including personal circumstances. Stakeholders were from a broad range of sectors and countries including the UK, Europe and Canada. These are summarised in the table below.

Table 1: Interviewees by sector and country

In our research, personal circumstances refer to a variety of individual or household factors that may affect the ability to comply with or benefit from such regulations. Depending on the personal circumstance, they can be transient by their nature or permanent. Specifically, we considered the following aspects of personal circumstances:

• Income level: Financial status is crucial as it affects an individual’s or family’s ability to invest in energy-efficient technologies or renovations. Lower-income households may require subsidies or financial incentives to afford necessary upgrades. Low-income households may also struggle to deal with disruptive works in the house, particularly if they need to find alternative housing during the work.
• Health conditions and disability: Health issues, especially those related to respiratory problems or illnesses exacerbated by cold or damp conditions, can make certain regulations more urgent or necessary for specific individuals. They can also make it particularly difficult to deal with disruptive works in the house.
• Property type: The type of property one lives in (e.g., detached house, flat, listed building, etc) can influence the feasibility of certain energy-efficient solutions or decarbonisation methods. A separate piece of research investigated building characteristics that may require exemptions is ongoing at the time of writing.
• Ownership status: Whether a person owns or rents their home significantly impacts an individual’s ability to make substantial changes to their property, such as upgrading heating systems. Renters often lack the ability to implement these improvements, as landlords retain the final decision-making power. Landlords might impose modifications that do not align with tenants’ preferences or fail to consider their personal circumstances adequately. Additionally, tenants may face the risk of eviction if they push for changes that landlords find inconvenient. Thus, protecting the interests of tenants becomes crucial, ensuring that energy efficiency improvements and clean heat installations do not result in undue cost or disruption for them.
• Location: Geographic location affects climate-related needs; for example, homes in colder regions might prioritise heating efficiency more than homes in milder climates. The reliability of the heating system is also crucial in colder regions. Additionally, rural or urban settings can influence access to certain technologies or energy sources and logistics.
• Household composition: The size of the household and the presence of vulnerable individuals (such as children, elderly, or disabled members) can affect energy needs.
• Cultural practices: Cultural or lifestyle factors might affect energy consumption patterns and openness to certain technologies or changes.

The project team built an Excel database to log all relevant regulations identified through the project and to include key information for each one. The database was a valuable resource when completing the analysis of findings for the project. Relevant criteria collected for each regulation included the enforcing authority to determine the eligibility and type of personal circumstance within the regulation, as well as the method of support available – such as extension, financial support, etc, and redress options (if relevant). The full list of database criteria is available in the appendix.

Research limitations

We acknowledge that the number of regulatory examples that include personal circumstances we have identified is limited. The researchers have endeavoured to identify regulatory examples to the extent that is possible. However, we acknowledge the limitation of finding all relevant regulations given the breadth of the project and the fast-developing nature of the heat and energy efficiency policy space.

We have not conducted full research into the reasons why governments have not included personal circumstances within regulations but suggest the following potential reasons for limited examples:

• Not considered viable: Inclusion of personal circumstances may have been considered, but the government determined that doing so was not feasible. This could either be due to the potential to limit effectiveness of the regulation or challenges associated with how including personal circumstance would work in practice. There may be an assumption that appropriate flexibility will be offered within the overall regime, without it being explicit in the overarching legislation.
• Low priority: Countries may have considered including personal circumstances at some stage during regulation design but deemed this a low priority resulting in no further action.
• Oversight: Countries may have neglected to consider the significance of personal circumstances within key regulation and the potential benefit of including them.

As the research focused on identifying regulations, the research on the type of personal circumstances that affect people’s ability to meet a regulation is limited. Additionally, we have not researched in detail how government intervention could best help different people meet the regulations as this is beyond the scope.

A further limitation of the research is the focus on regulation. There is a possibility that some countries are open to considering exemptions or extensions in practice on a case-by-case basis. This would require residents to reach out to the enforcing authority or body to request some flexibility on the regulation that considers their personal situation. The interview data suggests this possibility, but this was not investigated in detail in this report. It is also possible that Government funding is provided to people in vulnerable circumstances that is not linked directly with regulation; this was also not covered within the scope of the research.

Key findings: Personal circumstances in energy efficiency and clean heat regulations

We undertook a comprehensive review of heat, energy efficiency and other home decarbonisation-related regulations to identify the most relevant examples of regulations including flexibility in enforcement for personal circumstances. Through desk-based research, we identified 18 existing regulations relevant to this study that consider personal circumstances.

We conducted six interviews for this project. Most interviewees were not aware of examples of regulations that include provision for personal circumstances and responses to the idea ranged from neutral to negative. One interviewee who works for a professional housing sector body confirmed that within the housing sector, regulation usually involves meeting a minimum standard with funding available for those who cannot do this themselves. There are no exemptions from electrical and gas safety standards, so the interviewee questioned why decarbonisation measures should be treated any differently as the regulation is in part intended to benefit the resident. Discussions regarding personal circumstances within regulations focused on low-income residents struggling to meet standards due to lack of finance; most interviewees were familiar with such regulation. Most interviewees agreed the solution to this would be provision of additional funding and confirmed that they were only aware of such examples. This tallied with our findings from the desk-based research.

To facilitate the analysis, we have grouped our findings into two categories based on the personal circumstance considered. Our first category considers income levels and highlights eight policies providing additional support to lower-income households, using different methods. Our second category considers the high cost of the work mandated by the policy / regulation and highlights three examples of policies supporting owner-occupiers with the costs incurred for energy efficiency improvements or replacing their heating system with the mandated clean and renewable technology. A third section focuses on other exemptions and considerations, in which we highlight three other policies. In our analysis, we have merged two policies (implemented in France) together as they effectively work together and left out other policies identified which related to legal requirements and were thus out of scope. At the end of this section, we provide a detailed summary and analysis of the six interviews we conducted for this project. Interviewees came from different sectors to ensure a wide range of views.

Income level

Overview

Out of the 18 regulations identified which considered personal circumstances, nine considered income level. More particularly, the regulations had a specific provision for low-income households. These regulations, covered in more detail below, focus on the renovation of existing residential buildings to increase their energy efficiency, and on the replacement of inefficient or high-carbon heating systems for hot water and space heating. These regulations were identified in Europe for the most part (France (3), Italy, the Netherlands, the UK and Poland) as well as in Canada. They include minimum standards setting out how renovation should be conducted and which appliances to install, as well as other regulations encouraging the uptake of energy efficiency measures.

In our research, we identified two distinct phases—initial and advanced— in the evolution of regulatory approaches aimed at promoting energy efficiency and reducing environmental impact. The initial phase is characterised by non-binding, voluntary measures designed to encourage the adoption of clean heat technologies. This phase relies heavily on incentives such as grants, subsidies, or tax rebates to motivate owner-occupiers to implement energy-efficient solutions without the pressure of legal mandates. Most of the regulations highlighted in this section are part of governments’ first step in driving the transformation of buildings on the way to decarbonisation and net zero objectives. In contrast, the advanced phase introduces legally binding regulations that include minimum standards setting out how renovation should be conducted and which appliances to install, as well as other regulations encouraging the uptake of energy efficiency measures. The Scottish Government is specifically interested in the regulations falling in the advanced phase, as funding (initial phase) has already been implemented in Scotland. Two of the regulations highlighted fit into this advanced phase as they include minimum standards, which could show a potential path for the evolution of existing or future clean heat measures. Minimum standards create a legal requirement for specific appliances or energy efficiency measures to be installed, which is then enforced by local planning authorities. The City of Vancouver’s Zoning and Development by-law (City of Vancouver, 2022) mandated the installation of zero emissions heating systems in all new low-rise residential buildings in 2022 and will extend this mandate to all new and replacement heating system installations in 2025. The second example is Poland’s Clean Air 2.0 (Ministry of Climate and Environment, 2022) in which Polish regions have implemented emissions standards for heating appliances in all new and existing single-family homes.

Policymakers across these six countries recognise the urgency in renovating their housing stock and turning them into clean, efficient and comfortable homes. However, they are also aware of the cost implications of these updates and retrofits. As a result, they have developed support schemes and policies to incentivise and help all households to undertake these works, with specific, additional support for low-income households. The definition of a low-income household depends on local economic conditions and is country specific. However, the support provided to low-income households has commonalities across the regulations identified:

• Grants and subsidies: the regulation offers a free contribution to owner-occupiers who undertake an energy efficiency renovation in their home. The contribution usually only covers a share of the total cost of the renovation and is capped up to a certain amount. As an example, the French PrimeRénov’ (Republique Francaise, 2024) is an incentive to help owner-occupiers replace their heating system; in addition to other incentives, it can cover up to 90% of eligible expenses for very modest households, 75% for low-income households, 60% for intermediary households and 40% for high-income households. Eligible expenses include a large-scale renovation of a home leading to an improvement of at least two EPC labels, a specific renovation of the heating system or insulation, or the renovation of a multiple occupancy building.
• Low-interest loans: the regulation offers access to a low-interest loan for owner-occupiers to undertake the renovation and / or retrofit. Depending on countries, the loan can cover part or the total of the renovation work. The Dutch Energy Saving Loan provides a 0% rate on the total cost of the renovation for owner-occupiers with an aggregate income below €60,000. (Nationaal Warmtefonds, 2024).

In our review, we did not identify examples of regulations providing exemptions or abeyances related to income levels. Similarly, redress options weren’t mentioned on the websites reviewed.

Analysis of effectiveness and success

All nine regulations accounting for income level as a personal circumstance proved effective in incentivising owner-occupiers to install energy efficiency measures. Across the countries identified, at least thousands of households had applied for the support schemes. These schemes are available to most households but provide additional support for low-income households. In France, the PrimeRénov’ has received over 1.7 million applications, distributed over €1.7 billion in grants between 2020 and 2023 (Carole-Anne Cornet, 2024). In the Netherlands, over €1.2 billion were provided as part of the Energy Savings Loans, resulting in the renovation of over 90,000 homes across the country (Nationaal Warmtefonds, 2024). One notable measure is the Italian Superbonus which was the only measure providing support up to 110% of the cost of the renovation for owner-occupiers. Whilst the initial objective of the regulation – incentivising owner-occupiers to undertake energy efficiency renovations – has been achieved, the policy had been much more popular than expected, as the take-up of incentives had hit €219 billion by the end of 2023, as opposed to the budgeted €35 billion (Balmer & Fonte, 2024).

Understanding the effectiveness of providing additional support when considering income level as a personal circumstance is more challenging, as governments don’t report such detailed information. Table 2 provides detailed uptake and spending information for all measures identified, when information was available.

Table 2: Income level-related measures and impact

High cost of work in the home

Overview

Out of the 18 regulations identified which considered personal circumstances, three specifically considered the high cost of work in the home, as a combination of property type and location personal circumstances. These regulations mandate the ban of fossil-fuelled heating systems and their replacement by clean or hybrid heating systems. These regulations were identified in the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United States of America (USA). For this exemption, these regulations consider the cost of replacing a fossil-fuelled heating system with a clean / hybrid one and the lifetime cost of running the clean / hybrid heating system. In the cases where the combined estimated installation and running costs of the clean / hybrid heating system are higher, owner-occupiers are exempt from the ban. The regulations in place do not mention a duration for this exemption. Denver City Council has implemented such a regulation banning the installation of natural gas furnaces and water heaters in new commercial and multi-occupancy buildings as part of its new building codes (Weiser, 2023). Additionally, they have earmarked $30 million in incentives to help building owners and homeowners install heat pumps instead.

Analysis of effectiveness and success

There is no published information available online on the effectiveness and / or success of these regulations. These regulations are rather recent, published in 2021 in Switzerland, 2023 in the USA and 2024 in the Netherlands. The Dutch regulation, which mandates a hybrid heat pump as the standard for residential heating, will be implemented from 2026. (Dutch Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, 2023)

Table 3: Measures considering high cost of work in the home

Other exemptions: alternative clean heating considerations, location, age of residents and household composition

Overview

Our research uncovered two examples of regulations where an exemption was granted if an alternative clean heating system was already being implemented. This approach effectively ties compliance obligations to geographic location, making them dependent on local infrastructure rather than individual choice. As a result, whether a homeowner needs to adhere to these mandates becomes a matter of personal circumstance dictated by their residence’s location, which is typically a fixed factor unless the homeowner decides to move. This geographic-based exemption recognises the contributions of existing local initiatives and reduces redundancy in regulatory compliance.

These examples are both in the Netherlands, where gas-fired heating appliances were banned from all newbuild construction in 2018 and all replacement heating systems will need to meet a specific level of efficiency as per the standard for heating appliances implemented from 2026. The standard for heating appliances is a de facto ban on gas-fired heating appliances with the only alternative being hybrid systems and heat pumps. The Dutch Government grants exemptions to the construction of a new build development when green gas is used in the local and existing gas infrastructure, and if there is no alternative heating system available. From 2026, the Dutch Government plans to grant exemptions to the heating appliance efficiency standard only when homes are connected, or plan to be connected in the near future, to another alternative to natural gas, such as a heat network, to avoid duplication of costs.

Our research also uncovered a unique example of a regulation in Germany mandating all new heating system installations to be at least 65% renewable, effectively mandating hybrid systems or heat pumps. In addition to subsidies and wide-ranging transition periods applying to the whole population, this regulation includes an exemption for owner-occupiers aged 80 or older occupying a building of up to six properties, for new installations or replacement. There is no published explanation of the reasoning behind this exemption, however we understand it is meant to avoid any unnecessary stress and disruption on elderly people.

Analysis of effectiveness and success

The Dutch efficiency standard will be implemented from 2026 and thus can’t be assessed yet. However, we believe that the Dutch public is aware of this regulation as it attracted significant attention in the press and general media when it was voted on. Similarly, whilst the German building act is one of the most advanced clean heating legislations in Europe, there isn’t enough time to measure its impact since it was implemented in January 2024. The Dutch Gas Act has been implemented since 2018 and is estimated to support 1.5 million existing homes to change their heat source by 2030 (Cole, 2021).

Table 4: Other exemptions