Sustainability at the Rural Estates

Delivering long term benefits for nature, climate and communities

We’re working to deliver generational change for nature recovery and climate resilience across our UK rural estates, enhancing biodiversity and reducing carbon emissions.

Watch our film to see how we’re improving our understanding of our environment and turning insights into action to enhance the environment

Building a detailed understanding of our land Building a detailed understanding of our land

Building a detailed understanding of our land

As part of a Grosvenor-wide carbon commitment to reduce our emissions in line with limiting global warming to 1.5°C, we recorded our most detailed environmental baseline to date across our three UK rural estates.

Alongside existing data, our expert teams collaborated with specialist consultants and partner organisations to undertake an extensive ground truthing exercise, capturing accurate information on our soils, habitats and all living things.

Data gathering techniques included:

  • Airplane mounted laser scanners creating 3D models of the land that are accurate to 5cm
  • Walking the land to assess the condition of habitats and to calculate biodiversity levels
  • Soil organic carbon sampling measuring the soil’s current carbon content and ability to store water
  • An innovative pilot study investigating whether environmental DNA in soils can act as an early indicator of biodiversity and soil health
  • A peatland hydrology study to understand bog functionality, how water enters, flows through, and exits.

Turning data into insight

The team from Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) Natural Capital Hub, a pioneering facility that was created to help safeguard the UK’s natural assets by sharing data and strategies among public and private bodies, has analysed this data following the fieldwork. 

Through this, we now know that: 

  • Around 90% of our habitat is in good or moderate condition, enabling us to focus on improving the remaining 10%.
  • We already exceed the “30by30” target agreed at the UN Biodiversity Summit (COP15) in 2022 and adopted by the UK to protect 30% of land and sea for nature by 2030, with 36% of our land meeting the target.
  • The land holds over 250,000 biodiversity units – the standard measure of ecological value in England. This is a nationally significant number demonstrating our ability to deliver impact at scale. Excitingly, this exercise has shown we have the potential to increase biodiversity units by 10% across our estates. 
  • More than 11m tonnes of carbon are stored in our land, 80% of which is in our peatlands, informing our peatland strategy and future restoration work. 
  • Through capturing more accurate data, we’ve established our carbon footprint was approximately 71,000 tonnes of CO2e in 2024, and that we are sequestering  18,000 tCO2e annually at our three UK rural estates, from our managed woodland, grassland and other natural capital assets.

Supporting better decision-making

Bringing this information together, LJMU produced opportunity maps identifying areas where targeted interventions can deliver the greatest benefits for nature, people and climate resilience, including carbon storage and flood mitigation.

Alongside this, LJMU produced a detailed carbon baseline of the land, against which we can measure the effectiveness of future activities to reduce emissions through peatland restoration and sequester more carbon through tree and hedgerow planting and soil management. 

To support employees across our rural estates to use this data effectively, we are developing an uplift tool that models the benefits of land-use choices in real time, helping prioritise action and measure progress.


From insights into action

Informed by this data, our 25-year nature and carbon improvement programme is underway aiming to reduce carbon emissions to achieve our 2050 carbon reduction target, while also delivering multiple benefits for soil health, biodiversity and climate resilience. 

The strategy will see new areas of woodland planted, more peatland restoration projects – building on over 1,000 hecatres of peatland that has been restored since 2013 – property retrofits and low-carbon transition schemes, while continuing to measure and evaluate the impact of our activities. 



Our carbon commitment

For more information about how we're contributing to Grosvenor's global carbon commitment, reducing emissions in line with limiting global warming to 1.5°C, on our rural estates by reading our carbon strategy.

Find out more

For more information about how we're contributing to Grosvenor's global carbon commitment, reducing emissions in line with limiting global warming to 1.5°C, on our rural estates by reading our carbon strategy.

We’ve produced a series of films capturing how these extensive surveys were completed across the diverse environments that makeup our rural estates, from windswept Highland mountains in Scotland, the mosaic of habitats that make up Bowland’s moorland in Lancashire or the fertile agricultural land of the Cheshire plain. 

Watch the films to learn more about how we built our environmental baseline.

Measuring carbon in our peatland

At Grosvenor’s Reay Forest Estate in the north-west Highlands, we sampled swathes of peatland to better understand its depth and quality, how much carbon it stores as well as its potential to capture more from the atmosphere. 

Analysing habitat biodiversity

At Grosvenor's Eaton Estate, Cheshire, in collaboration with the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, we've carried out detailed surveys of the diverse habitats found on the estate, such as woodlands, grasslands, ponds and wetlands, assessing their condition, biodiversity and connectivity to inform how we can support landscape scale nature recovery.

Enhancing the health of our soils

Approximately double the carbon in the atmosphere is stored in the Earth's soils. At Grosvenor’s Abbeystead Estate, Lancashire, we're working with Agricarbon to sample our soils and measure organic carbon content to estimate overall soil health as well as its capacity to hold water, reducing the risk of flooding downstream. Detailed surveys will help us to identify where and when we need to take action to improve our soils and where we have the potential to store more carbon in the land.

Using soil environmental DNA to measure biodiversity improvement

At Grosvenor’s Reay Forest Estate in the north-west Highlands, we're working in collaboration with the Institute for Biodiversity and Freshwater Conservation, University of the Highlands and Islands, Inverness, on a pilot study to see if environmental DNA (eDNA) in the soils, can be an early indicator of nature recovery.

Building a culture of climate action

Grosvenor rural estates is bronze certified by the Carbon Literacy Project, recognising our dedication to climate action, reducing carbon emissions and creating a low-carbon culture through behavioural change.

The accolade followed rural estates employees attending full day carbon literacy training sessions, during which they made their own personal pledges to drive change. 

The award builds on the cultural shift that is already underway across the organisation, empowering employees to take meaningful action, embedding sustainability into everyday decisions and growing our commitment to climate action from the ground up.

Our sustainability policy

Our sustainability policy helps guide decision making and provides the foundation for the organisation’s journey to a more sustainable future. Sustainability policies are cornerstone documents for businesses that take their economic, social and environmental responsibilities seriously. 

The rural estates’ policy sets our overall approach to sustainability for employees, in the communities where we operate as well as for our partners, enabling companies across our supply chains to better understand how we manage our impact on people and the planet. To review our policy, click here.

Group 2