Reckitt causes carbon offset upset

Consumer goods group Reckitt Benckiser may be best known in the UK for products such as Durex condoms and Strepsils throat lozenges - but out in the west of Canada it is gaining a very different reputation: as a rampant land-grabber.

For the past nine years, the London-listed company has been buying large areas of land in British Columbia to offset its carbon emissions.

"People are concerned," said Bill Miller, chairman of the Regional District of Bulkley-Nechako, an administrative district in the middle of the Canadian province. "They said they were going to target marginal land, which took them off our radar. But concerns started to build when they started to buy land much closer in, with more agricultural potential."

Now, local ranchers have told Mr Miller they are being outbid by Reckitt at land sales, and there is growing concern about land being locked up for carbon-offsetting forestry when Asian demand for farm produce is rising.

Reckitt has agreed to meet district officials next month to discuss their worries, but says it is not aware that its actions have affected overall property prices. Still, it acknowledges its green efforts may need a rethink.

"Our approach has been to target land and areas that have been previously deforested - for example, rough pasture and abandoned farms," the company told the Financial Times.

"We now understand that, with emerging trends in land use, some of the land we purchase could be used for other purposes such as production of hay, and for that reason we are currently in the process of reviewing our principles for land acquisition."

As part of a programme to plant enough trees to cover emissions from its manufacturing plants between 2006 and 2017, the company has bought 104 square kilometres of land in British Columbia

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Since 2006, Reckitt Benckiser has planted just over 7m native trees in British Columbia, offsetting 2.4m tonnes of CO2. In in its latest sustainability report, it says it plans to create forests lasting "at least 100 years".

However, Mr Miller said that is a long time to lock up potential wood-harvesting land in a region where the timber industry has just recovered from a serious pine beetle infestation.

Reckitt said that although it aimed to keep the trees for 100 years, "there are no covenants in the contracts of the land that we own". "This is a project that plants trees native to central interior of British Columbia that helps restore natural forest," it said.

"Given the benefits of the programme to both the environment and to the local economies, we hope that we can continue to work together with British Columbia authorities to identify suitable land for our programme."

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