BrewDog has sold a Scottish rewilding estate it bought with great fanfare in 2020, following losses of £37m on its beer businesses last year. The company paid £8.8m for Kinrara near Aviemore, but has now sold it to Oxygen Conservation, a firm backed by wealthy rewilding enthusiasts.
When BrewDog bought the estate, it pledged to plant millions of trees across 50 sq km of land and initially claimed the project would be partly funded by sales of its Lost Forest beer. However, it later retracted many of these claims, admitting the estate was smaller at 37 sq km, and that the tree-planting area would be smaller still. It also conceded the project would never absorb the 550,000 tonnes of CO2 annually originally claimed, with a maximum of 1m tonnes over 100 years.
The venture was part of since-abandoned efforts by co-founder James Watt to brand the company as carbon-negative or carbon-neutral. It faced further problems, with critics saying native trees were failing to grow and that buildings were sold off. BrewDog has also suffered a broader downturn, with around 2,000 pubs delisting its products and the closure of 10 bars, including its flagship Aberdeen outlet.
Kinrara, covering 3,764 hectares of the Monadhliath mountains, is the latest asset to be sold. Oxygen Conservation, founded only four years ago, has quickly acquired 12 UK estates covering more than 20,200 hectares. Chief executive Rich Stockdale disputed claims that the initial restoration work had failed, saying: "We were blown away by the job that had been done; far better than we expected." He added that the company planned to continue BrewDog's programme of peatland restoration and woodland creation.
Oxygen Conservation already owns three estates in Scotland, including in the Cairngorms and Scottish Borders, as well as a stretch of foreshore in the Firth of Tay. Its backers include Oxygen House, set up by statistician Dr Mark Dixon, and Blue and White Capital, founded by Tony Bloom, owner of Brighton & Hove Albion. The company, which values its portfolio at £300m, aims to profit from carbon credits, renewable energy and eco-tourism. NatureScot said it believed more than £100m in private and public investment could be raised for nature restoration.
