The Scottish beer company BrewDog promised to plant three million trees on a Scottish Highland estate and declared itself “carbon negative.” Half the saplings died, the peatlands were damaged, the advertising regulator ruled the claims misleading – and the company quietly sold the estate before collapsing into administration.
In 2020, BrewDog – a Scottish beer company known for aggressive marketing – purchased the 9,300-acre Kinrara estate in the Scottish Cairngorms for approximately £8.8 million. The company’s founder, James Watt, announced plans to create “the biggest ever” forest in Scotland, spanning 19 square miles and capable of “sequestering up to 550,000 tonnes of CO2 each year.” The initiative – branded the “Lost Forest” – was positioned as the centrepiece of BrewDog’s claim to be a carbon-negative company.
BrewDog also secured up to £1.2 million in Scottish Government grants to fund fencing and ground preparation. The target was three million trees by 2025.
Dead Trees and Damaged Peatlands
Of the 500,000 trees planted in the first phase, roughly 250,000 died following a severe drought in 2023. But the drought was only part of the problem. Critics across Scotland’s land management sector blamed BrewDog’s industrial “mounding” planting technique – using excavators to scrape and overturn soil – for drying out peat and destroying lichen-rich heath.
The environmental consequences were the opposite of what was promised. Research cited by Parkswatch Scotlandindicated that planting trees on peat using such methods could release carbon into the atmosphere for forty years or more, as exposed peat oxidises and degrades. Rather than sequestering carbon, the Lost Forest project likely added to emissions. Six estate gamekeepers were dismissed to make way for the scheme.
BrewDog marketed itself as a “Certified Carbon Negative Company,” using the claim prominently across social media and product branding. In 2024, the UK Advertising Standards Authority ruled the carbon-negative claims misleading, finding that the company’s advertising did not provide sufficient information for people to understand the basis of the environmental claims. BrewDog subsequently abandoned its carbon-negative strategy altogether.
BrewDog’s greenwashing fits a well-documented industry pattern. From Heineken using sustainability partnerships to obscure water exploitation and labour abuses in Brazil, to Rockland Distilleries leveraging wildlife conservation to mask the harms of its core business in Sri Lanka, to Kenya’s alcohol lobby fighting environmental legislation while running green PR campaigns – alcohol companies routinely deploy environmental claims as reputational shields. Meanwhile, alcohol production continues to drive water scarcity, pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions globally, as documented extensively in cases like AB InBev draining water from drought-stricken communities in Mexico.
Sold, Collapsed, and Acquired
In October 2025, BrewDog sold the Kinrara estate. Months later, in March 2026, BrewDog itself entered administration and was acquired by Tilray Brands – a Canadian cannabis and beverage conglomerate – for £33 million. The 220,000 people who had invested a combined £75 million through BrewDog’s “Equity for Punks” crowdfunding campaigns received nothing.
The environmental harm caused by alcohol production is well documented and growing – and so is the greenwashing used to disguise it. When an alcohol company’s most prominent sustainability project ends with 250,000 dead trees, damaged peatlands, a regulatory rebuke, and a quiet estate sale – the “Lost Forest” label becomes less a brand name and more an epitaph.
Sources
- Forestry Journal. “BrewDog sells Lost Forest and Highland estate to Oxygen Conservation.” October 2025.
- Parkswatch Scotland. “BrewDog’s ‘Lost Forest’ at Kinrara – senseless, destructive and a misuse of public money.” October 2023.
- inside.beer. “UK: BrewDog Abandons ‘Lost Forest’ and Sells Scottish Estate.” October 2025.
- UK Advertising Standards Authority. “ASA Ruling on BrewDog plc.” 2024.
- Restaurant Online. “BrewDog to ‘let carbon negative claim lapse.’” July 2024.
- Tilray Brands. “Tilray Brands Acquires BrewDog.” Press release, March 2026.
- Beervana Blog. “Tilray Acquires BrewDog for Pocket Change.” March 2026.
- Countryside Alliance. “Tim Bonner: Punk beer, dead trees and a lost forest.” October 2025.
The picture used above is an illustration – not a depiction of the actual forest in question.