Could Fingal grow a revenue stream from its green spaces?

Fingal County Council has swathes of green spaces and nature.  

“You just think of our parkland,” says Labour Party Councillor James Humphreys. “And then we're also doing kind of peatland projects and rewetting projects as well.”

About 13 percent of the county’s lands – or more than 6,090 hectares – are zoned as greenbelt, an official said recently.

There are 2,090 hectares classed as nature conservation sites, and 7,050 hectares of nature development areas, says its Biodiversity Action Plan. 

It all got Humphrey’s thinking, he says, about a new EU regulation on carbon removal and storage – and how the county could in future make money from its biodiversity-preservation efforts.   

At a recent council meeting on 13 October, Humphreys asked officials if they would consider doing a feasibility study. 

“So that Fingal is ready to participate in carbon credit schemes and generate revenue from public land once national measures are in place?” said his written question.

Said Humphreys, on Monday: “What I’m trying to get council to do is, when we’re expanding the woodlands, that will be kind of classified as a carbon sink.”

They could be parceled up, guaranteed preserved for decades, and the captured carbon sold as credits to companies, he says.

“Then whatever revenue was generated from that carbon sink can be then reinvested into more projects,” he said. “What it does, it also lands an extra layer of protection onto our green belts.”

Neither the Environmental Protection Agency, nor the Department of Environment Climate and Communications have responded to queries asking about Ireland’s approach to the framework and whether local authorities can participate, sent on Friday and Sunday respectively.

Origins of the idea

Humphreys says his idea was partly motivated by the need to hedge, in light of a current lawsuit against Fingal County Council by DAA, the company that operates Dublin Airport. 

Tailte Éireann – the state agency responsible for property valuation, among other things – revalued the airport’s property upwards in 2019. 

Fingal County Council has been charging the DAA rates based on these new valuations, costing it millions more per year. 

DAA is appealing this, and there’s a question of how much the council would have to refund if it loses, Humphreys said.

The council has put aside money in its budget “to make provision for potential losses arising from the Valuation Tribunal determinations”. 

But Humphreys came up with his carbon credits plan as another way of putting money aside.

Ireland can follow the new EU framework for how to systematically measure carbon credits, which can be sold to companies or governments as a way for them to offset climate emissions, he said.

The council should start to buy up and leverage that public green space, he says, selling its carbon-capture potential and keeping it green while making money.

His question to officials at the meeting on 13 October pointed to how the county’s Climate Action Plan 2024 to 2029 already had a commitment to increase carbon sequestration. 

And, the Biodiversity Action Plan 2022 t0 2030 mentions expanding woodland and restoring peatlands, he wrote.

Indeed, the Biodiversity Action Plan says the council wants to explore “various actions to restore carbon-rich habitats such as wetlands, saltmarsh, rivers, woodlands, shellfish beds and seagrass beds”.

It also seeks to protect these carbon-rich habitats from degradation, it says. 

More funding streams are needed for that, the plan says. A goal is to “explore funding models for carbon offsetting to fund wetland and woodland development”, the plan says, in order to “find alternative funding sources to fund wetland and woodland creation”.

The written response to Humphreys – from the council’s director of environment, David Storey, and its director of planning, Matthew McAleese – said Fingal County Council is committed to expanding woodlands and restoring peatlands through its Fingal’s Climate Action Plan 2024–2029 and the Biodiversity Action Plan 2022–2030. 

In the Biodiversity Action Plan, it says the council has bought hundreds of acres, “near the estuaries and in the Liffey Valley to create new saltmarsh, wetlands and woodland that will act as carbon sinks to mitigate climate change”, they wrote. 

And, they were working on identifying and acquiring climate buffer sites to capture carbon, it says in the plan.

Waiting for higher ups

In November 2024, the European Union rolled out a voluntary framework for member states that lays out how they should monitor, report, and verify carbon removal from land use and other sectors. 

It covers three types of carbon capture: permanent storage, carbon farming and soil emission reductions, and carbon storage in products.

The aim is to create trust in carbon-removal certificates.

Ireland has yet to formally adopt the voluntary certification framework.

And before councils can get involved, the national government needs to develop its umbrella policy, said Storey and McAleese, in their written response to Humphreys.

“Fingal County Council will continue to monitor progress and, once the framework is in

place, will examine the feasibility of involvement,” they said.

But Humphreys wants the council to start prep now, he says, so that once national rules are set, the council can act quickly.

They could be “identifying sites, assessing feasibility so we’re ready the minute national rules come in”, he said.

Part of what needs to happen is the national government setting up the awarding body,  which gives the certificate that says this is saving X amount of carbon, we estimate, he said. 

And the national government will have to collaborate across entities, he said, they need "the farmers, the foresters, the landlords, to kind of buy into the framework".

There are projects to monetise public greenery elsewhere, says Humphreys, pointing to King County, Washington, which has a carbon credit program to protect public forests. 

And to France, where towns and municipalities can get carbon credits through reforestation as part of the “Label-Bas Carbone” programme.

How much Fingal could make is still, of course, unclear.

In June last year, Teagasc, the Irish Agriculture and Food Development Authority, wrote that “one tonne of carbon is estimated to be worth €100 by the year 2030 and €200 by the year 2045”.

Mean annual sequestration rates “can range from 1–9 tonnes of CO2 per hectare”, it says.

So, for every 1,000 hectares of land that is proven to meet the framework for carbon capture, the county could get between €100,000 and €900,000 a year. 

Marcus Collier, associate professor and head of botany at Trinity College Dublin, said he would love to know what the money might be used for if it were to happen. “I’d love if it would be used to increase biodiversity.”

Labour Party Councillor John Walsh said Tuesday that he backs Humphreys’ plan, pointing to the need for imaginative solutions by local authorities in response to the climate crisis. 

“This is a great opportunity for Fingal Council to play its part in addressing the climate crisis and on key objectives in the Biodiversity action plan, while generating revenue which could be reinvested in green infrastructure and biodiversity projects,” Walsh said on WhatsApp. 

“We can only hope that the Government will step up with the national policy and not drag their feet as they have done so often,” he said. 

John Burtchaell, a Solidarity councillor, said he agrees with Humphreys’ proposals too – and some. 

Carbon credits and taxes just aren’t enough when you look at the big picture, he says.

"Carbon credits and carbon taxes are insufficient and the nature of the economy needs to be fundamentally reassessed," he said. They’re not ambitious enough, he says.

“It’s an attempt to commodify the climate crisis, where rich countries can buy carbon credits rather than taking the necessary measures to reduce their carbon output," he says.

The work needs to be done, he says, “regardless of whether you know, money can be generated from them or not".

Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.