Regenerative Capitalism Will Save The Planet! And It's Based On Carbon Credits (Along With Massive Bank Loans)

[hatrack]

The founder of an investment firm buying large estates across Britain to restore woods and peatland has said it is “unashamedly and proudly” capitalist, and plans to make tens of millions of pounds in profit. Rich Stockdale, the chief executive of Oxygen Conservation, said his model of “regenerative capitalism” was a “force for good” because it would offer investors significant profits by planting trees, restoring peatlands, operating solar farms and holiday homes and installing new windfarms across its estates.

The Exeter-based firm, which has bought 13 estates in under four years, plans to rapidly become the UK’s largest private landowner by expanding its current landholding of 50,000 acres (20,234 hectares) over the next five years to 250,000 acres. “We are applying a capitalist model, unashamedly and proudly,” Stockdale said, on a tour of Oxygen’s estate at Dorback near Grantown-on-Spey in the Cairngorms. “We think releasing, activating and motivating more capital into this space is the only way we can scale conservation for the better of climate, wildlife, people and everyone concerned.”

Ed. - Note: use of "space" - always a warning sign of CEO-bullshit speak.

EDIT

Despite insisting Oxygen Conservation would be transparent about its plans and its business model, Stockdale refused to confirm or deny reports from natural capital experts he had already spent £150m and planned to spend another £100m on land. He said he could not say how much he paid the brewing firm BrewDog this summer for its estate at Kinrara near Kingussie or for Dorback because their owners had requested confidentiality. Campaigners said withholding the sale price for a Highland estate is unusual, undermined transparency and risked concealing changes in the land market.

Its biggest investors include Mark Dixon, a billionaire statistician who holds most of its shares, the self-styled ethical bank Triodos and Tony Bloom, a gambling billionaire who owns Brighton and Hove Albion FC. Bloom is currently being sued in a lawsuit alleging his gambling syndicate used “frontmen” to place bets. It is understood Bloom intends to file a defence to the claim. The latest accounts for its parent company, Oxygen House Group, which is also the majority shareholder in Low Carbon, the firm building its two Scottish windfarms, show the firm has two large bank loans totalling £106m to be repaid by 2033. Its critics point out that the two Scottish estates where it wants to build new 50MW windfarms, at Invergeldie near Loch Lomond and Trossachs national park, and at Blackburn and Hartsgarth estate near Langholm in the Borders, had bank loans worth £20.5m tied to them.

EDIT

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/dec/22/britain-rewilding-capitalism-investment-environment

[bucolic_frolic]

1. Agroforestry Farming Systems

An excuse to get their hands on the land.

[biophile]

2. Landed gentry 🧐

I personally think that there should be limitations on how much land any one person, corporation, company, family or other entity can own - singly or in aggregate.