Woodland Carbon Guarantee (currently closed)
A closed scheme that helped accelerate woodland planting rates and develop the domestic market for woodland carbon for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Applies to England
The Woodland Carbon Guarantee is now closed for applications.
Find out about:
The Woodland Carbon Guarantee (WCaG) was a £50 million scheme to help accelerate woodland planting rates and develop the domestic market for woodland carbon for the permanent removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. It is an objective in the 25 Year Environment Plan and was announced in the autumn 2018 budget.
What is on offer?
The WCaG gave the option to sell captured carbon from your woodland in the form of verified carbon credits, called Woodland Carbon Units (WCUs). You can sell WCUs to the government for a guaranteed price every 5 or 10 years up to 2055-56.
The government will buy the WCUs for an agreed guaranteed price that is index-linked for the life of the contract. This provides an additional long-term income from your woodland.
You can choose to sell the credits on the open market instead.
WCUs are generated through verification checks carried out under the Woodland Carbon Code (WCC), which assesses how the woodland has grown and how much carbon dioxide has been captured.
The WCaG is not a grant or a fund and it did not contribute towards the cost of woodland creation planning, establishment or early maintenance.
Find out more in our and in the detailed guide:
Projects without grant support
A new category ‘projects without grant support’ was available for the eighth auction for project developers who chose not to receive any grant funding from government to plant and maintain their new woodland.
These projects had access to a higher, but undisclosed, reserve price at auction compared to projects that will receive grant support. The higher reserve price reflected that the upfront costs of planting are borne by the project developer and are not recovered through grants such as the England Woodland Creation Offer (EWCO).
Projects could still receive Woodland Creation Planning Grant to support the design process and remain eligible for this new category.
Alongside the category for projects without grant support, the eighth auction also accepted applications for projects that intended to use government grant schemes. This needed to be declared on the application form, these projects were subject to the lower reserve price of £30 per WCU.
Find out if you are eligible
The WCaG was open to land managers who are owner occupiers, tenants, landlords and licensors. You needed to have control of the land and all the activities to meet the obligations of the WCaG for the full duration of the contract.
The WCaG application cannot include land:
- which is covered by a statutory requirement to establish or restock woodland
- which is not entirely within England
- where the applicant does not have management control for the length of the agreement and is unable to have an application countersigned by the landowner
- which is owned by public bodies
To apply for the WCaG, woodland creation projects needed to be registered with and managed under the WCC.
How to apply
The Woodland Carbon Guarantee is currently closed for applications.
Projects need to be registered with the WCC.
Read to understand the eligibility requirements.
If you have registered and meet the other eligibility requirements, complete the WCaG application form and return it to:
wcag@forestrycommission.gov.uk
Woodland Carbon Guarantee
Forestry Commission
620 Bristol Business Park
Coldharbour Lane
Bristol BS16 1EJ
For further advice on the WCaG, email us at wcag@forestrycommission.gov.uk.
How it works
There are 5 stages to the Woodland Carbon Guarantee process.
1. Pre-application
Before applying for the WCaG your project needs to be registered with the WCC. The WCC provides tools for calculating how much carbon will be sequestered by your woodland. You can download the Carbon Calculation spreadsheet and guidance from the WCC website.
2. Application
The Woodland Carbon Guarantee is currently closed for applications.
Once you calculated how much carbon your woodland will produce and registered it with the WCC, you could submit a Woodland Carbon Guarantee application form.
3. Auction
The eighth auction was held in September 2024. Further details about the eighth auction, including a list of eligible tree species, can be found in the .
If the project is successful at auction, a conditional 30 to 35 year contract is offered. You can view a .
The average successful bid price for WCUs to date is shown in the following table. However, the auction is a competitive process and the data in this table should not be taken as a firm indicator of acceptable bids.
| Auction | Total number of bids | Total number of successful bids | Average successful bid weighted by WCUs |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 31 | 18 | £24.11 |
| 2 | 77 | 27 | £19.71 |
| 3 | 46 | 31 | £17.31 |
| 4 | 23 | 19 | £18.62 |
| 5 | 16 | 15 | £23.70 |
| 6 | 9 | 9 | £22.61 |
| 7 | 2 | 2 | £19.76 |
| 8 | 3 | 3 | £25 |
4. Validation
All WCaG contract offers are conditional on securing validation under the WCC.
If you have applied for grant funding to plant your woodland, including funding from EWCO, you must have a EWCO agreement in place before you begin any on site work such as fencing. Where grant funding has not been applied for you must secure regulatory consent, including an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) before commencing work.
When you are awaiting the outcome of a WCaG auction, you should only start preparatory work where:
- grant funding and/or any necessary regulatory consents have been secured; and
- your project has been successfully registered with the WCC.
Any preparatory work carried out in advance of the outcome of the WCaG auction is entirely at your own risk and should not be done in reliance of success at the auction. If you are not successful, you will still be bound by any obligations attached to the project, including the terms of any grant agreement/s.
At the point when your woodland is validated under the WCC, it is possible to adjust the number of WCUs that can be sold to government under the WCaG, if this is based on a change in the woodland design plan (for example because of the EIA). Any request for a change in the maximum number of WCUs must be made in writing and agreed to in writing by the Forestry Commission. The maximum permitted increase in WCUs is 10% above the quantity requested on the application form and entered the auction; there is no maximum permitted decrease.
Once the project has been validated by the WCC, we will issue the final WCaG contract.
5. Verification
As your woodland grows, it will be verified every 5 or 10 years through the WCC to confirm the amount of carbon that has been sequestered and therefore the number of WCUs delivered. You then have the option to sell the verified credits to the government for the guaranteed price or to sell them privately on the open market.
WCaG contracts will only cover carbon sequestered for the first 30 to 35 years of the woodland’s life. The actual contract length will be determined by the starting year with all contracts ending in 2055-56. WCUs produced after 2055-56 can be sold privately but will not be purchased by the government under the WCaG.
You cannot sell more WCUs to the government at each verification point than the number set out in the contract, except where specifically agreed upon in writing by the government. If the number of verified units drops below 80% of the level set out in the contract, then the government reserves the right to cancel the contract for any future units.
Terms and conditions
For a full copy of the terms and conditions, see the .
Contact the Forestry Commission
To get further advice on the WCaG, email us at wcag@forestrycommission.gov.uk.
Updates to this page
Published 4 November 2019Last updated 18 February 2025 + show all updates
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The outcome of auction 8 was added to the table.
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Added a note confirming the scheme is closed for applications.
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Added dates for the auction, the deadline to apply and the following updated documents: 'guide to the eighth auction', 'sample participant contract' and 'Getting started with the Woodland Carbon Guarantee'.
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Updated to include Summary of Auction Results table.
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The next Woodland Carbon Guarantee auction will take place from midday on Monday 15 May to midday on Sunday 21 May 2023.
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The Woodland Carbon Guarantee is open for applications.
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Noting that the application window is now closed.
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Page updated: The next Woodland Carbon Guarantee auction will take place from midday on Monday 9 May to midday on Sunday 15 May 2022. The application deadline to take part in the auction is 11:59pm on Sunday 24 April.
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Updated information following the close of the fourth auction.
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Page updated to include details of the next auction.
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Page edited to reflect that the application period for the fourth auction has now closed.
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Update to include information about the fourth auction.
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Adding early summer 2021 to the timing of the next auction.
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The sample participant contract has been updated with clarifications.
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This page has been updated with information on the next Woodland Carbon Guarantee auction.
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The 'Guide to the second auction' document has been updated.
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The information on the Woodland Carbon Guarantee auction has been updated. The 'Getting Started with the Woodland Carbon Guarantee' document has also been updated.
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Information on the time it can take to complete the Woodland Carbon Code registration and Woodland Carbon Guarantee application processes, and how to work with a Woodland Carbon Code project developer, has been added to this page.
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The 'How it works' section has been updated.
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The 'Getting started with the Woodland Carbon Guarantee' document has been added to this page. The 'How it works' section has been updated.
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Update to the deadline for applications date and extension to the auction time frame.
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Addition of question and answer document.
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Updated the application submission for the first auction from the 10 to the 17 January 2020.
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Addition of the WCaG advice line phone number.
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Information about the auction in January 2020 has been added to this page.
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First published.