Net Zero and a Sustainable Future

Net Zero and a Sustainable Future – The Role of Healthy and Resilient Soils and Associated Land Management Practices

After the world’s oceans, soil is the world’s largest active carbon store, holding 80% of terrestrial carbon, which is almost three times the amount held in the world’s atmosphere. Soil carbon and soil health are intimately linked, and with soil health come multiple other benefits, those Soil Ecosystem Services such a supporting food and fibre production to help achieve food security for all, supporting biodiversity (both above and below ground level), water filtration and flood risk reduction. Of all the world’s enormous volume, life depends on a very thin living skin, the soil, exposed at the surface. But across one third of our land soil is degraded and we need a paradigm shift in how the critical importance of soils is understood. We should be talking about the inescapable link between human, societal and planetary health and the health of our soils, the Soil Life Nexus - there can be no life without soil, and no soil without life. The carbon cycle in the soil, and the protection of the land, are at the centre of the paradigm shift and are crucial factors in the fight against climate change.

This Sustainability Delivery Group Expert Talk will discuss the potential role of soil carbon in the journey to Net Zero and the wider co-benefits which can be achieved through sustainable soil and land management and stewardship.

Speaker: Dr Bruce Lascelles BSc (Hons), PhD, FISoilSci, MCIEEM, CEnv

Bruce is UK Director of Sustainable Land Management at Arcadis and President of the British Society of Soil Science. Bruce has a degree and PhD in Soil Science looking at environmental change in North Wales over the last 10,000 years. Following a period of undertaking research on various aspects of soils (particularly on soil erosion) Bruce became an environmental consultant where he has worked on aspects of the inter-relationships between the physical environment and plant and animal communities (including the development of habitat creation and restoration techniques), the impact on soils, ecology and hydrology from land use change and on surveying and mapping soil and land use types across the UK.