Delivering robust measurement pathways for a Scottish carbon land tax: an evidence review and feasibility study

LUNZ Hub Calldown 26 was commissioned to assess whether a Scottish carbon land tax could provide a credible incentive to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from peatlands, complementing restoration grants and carbon market mechanisms.

Implementing a peat emissions tax raises measurement and administrative challenges, including attributing emissions fairly to individual landholdings, managing uncertainty transparently, and ensuring workable compliance and appeal processes.

This report provides a desk-based review of methods for measuring peat-related emissions, summarises their strengths and limitations, assesses their feasibility for a Scottish tax context, and identifies priority research needs to support policy development. It highlights trade-offs between accuracy, cost, spatial resolution and administrative burden, concluding that current methods are not yet sufficient for a nationally applied emissions-based peatland land tax, but recommending further evidence-gathering and phased piloting.