Introduction

The Woodland Carbon Code is the quality assurance standard for UK woodland carbon projects. 

It empowers landowners, organisations and businesses to address climate change by creating and supporting woodland projects across the UK. 

The code is delivered by Scottish Forestry on behalf of the governments of the UK, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The Woodland Carbon Code operates across the UK only. This includes England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It cannot be used in British overseas territories or crown dependencies. 

Project developers shall use an accredited validation/verification body to validate and verify their project according to the validation and verification processes set out on our website.

Validation/verification bodies have experience of sustainable forest management and are accredited by UK Accreditation Service to validate and verify Woodland Carbon Code projects to:

• ISO 17029:2019 Conformity assessment - General principles and requirements for validation and verification bodies
• ISO 14065:2020 General principles and requirements for bodies validating and verifying environmental information
• ISO 14064-3:2019 Specification with guidance for the verification and validation of greenhouse gas statements

They will check that statements about predicted or actual carbon sequestration are materially correct. Projects are verified to a reasonable level of assurance, except at year five, where it’s a limited level of assurance.

If at any point there is no UK Accreditation Service accredited validation/verification body for the Woodland Carbon Code, the Woodland Carbon Code team will put temporary validation/verification arrangements in place. 

The Woodland Carbon Code is a voluntary standard. 

Woodland Carbon Code standards, tools and documents are distributed ‘as is’ and without warranties as to performance or merchantability or any other warranties whether expressed or implied. 

No responsibility for loss occasioned to any person or organisation acting, or refraining from action, as a result of any material in the standard, tools and documents can be accepted by Scottish Forestry, the Forestry Commission, Welsh Government or Northern Ireland Forest Service. 

Validation and verification do not imply endorsement by Scottish Forestry of the value of any investment. 

We may issue clarifications to this standard following feedback from interested parties. If any area of the requirements is not clear, please contact us to request clarification.

If you have a complaint about the standard of service from validation/verification bodies or disputes about the decision made by a validation/verification body, direct your complaint to the dispute process of the relevant validation/verification body in the first instance. 

• Organic Farmers and Growers
• Soil Association Certification

If you have a complaint or issue with the standard itself or its interpretation, this should be raised with the Woodland Carbon Code disputes panel.

Any complaints about the conduct of Scottish Forestry staff members should follow our standard complaints procedure.

This is version 3.0 of the Woodland Carbon Code released on 1 August 2025. Additional information is available at www.woodlandcarboncode.org.uk. 

We plan to update the standard and documents every three years to ensure they are clear and reflect best practice. 

We will update the cost and income data in the cashflow annually on 1 July.

We may issue clarifications between standard updates. Clarifications are effective immediately.

The latest standard, any clarifications and supporting guidance are available at www.woodlandcarboncode.org.uk. Please refer to this website for the most up to date version.

Projects shall adhere to the most current version of the code and accompanying documents. This requirement is subject to the transition arrangements below.

Standard version and other supporting documents

For the transition to version 3.0 of the standard, projects submitting for validation or verification up to 30 June 2026 may use either version 2.2 or version 3.0 of the standard. 

After this date, all projects shall use the new version.

Cashflow version

Each time we subsequently update the cashflow, there will be a year’s transition period. 

Project developers may choose whether to use the current or new cashflow based on their implementation date.