Facility for Investment Ready Nature in Scotland (FIRNS)

The Flow Country Green Finance Initiative received funding from the Facility for Investment Ready Nature in Scotland (FIRNS) to pilot a blended finance model for scaling up peatland restoration across the region.

This project explored how Peatland ACTION funding, private investment, and carbon credit sales could work together to create Flow Country Carbon as a premium, high-integrity product that delivers ecological, social, and economic benefits.

Three pilot sites were selected for this work:

• Armadale Farm – a hill farm,

• Achentoul Estate – a mixed farming and sporting estate, and

• Borgie Common Grazings – a crofting common grazings.

These land types are among the most common across the Flow Country, making them an ideal representation of the landscapes and management contexts where peatland restoration needs to succeed. Each site also presented its own challenges, including land ownership structures, agricultural requirements, and the complexities of crofting law.

More information about our FIRNS project can be found here.

Community Benefit Principles

As part of the FIRNS project, we developed a set of Community Benefit Principles. These principles reflect the Flow Country Partnership’s commitment to best practice in nature finance, ensuring that projects not only contribute to landscape restoration but also deliver meaningful benefits for local communities.

More information about our Community Benefit Principles is available here.