If your farm forest has earned NZUs that are parked for a future harvest liability, or sitting as the long-term nest egg, CLM will lease them from you. You receive an annual payment. The same number of units comes back to you on the agreed date.
Indicative only, based on a flat 10-year lease at 5.25% of unit value at commencement. Your rate, term and structure are set in your agreement.
Most farm foresters hold units for one of two reasons. In both cases the units sit in the registry account producing nothing for years.
You're on stock-change accounting and you'll owe units back at harvest, so you bank them now and wait. That cover might sit untouched for ten or twenty years.
The woodlot's units are the retirement fund or the next generation's deposit. You don't want to sell. You want to keep the asset and its price upside intact.
Unlike stock, land or a term deposit, NZUs pay nothing to hold. Leasing them to CLM puts an annual payment on top without giving up the units long term.
Your forest area, what's registered in the ETS, roughly how many units you're holding and why. Ten minutes on the phone or the form below. It costs nothing and commits you to nothing.
We calculate an annual payment as a fixed percentage of your units' market value at commencement, paid in regular instalments for the term. You'll see the rate, the term, the return date and the security in writing before anything is signed.
On the supply date your units transfer to CLM. CLM applies them to acquiring forestry land, and a mortgage over that land is registered in your favour to secure the return of your units. You keep your land, your trees and your ETS registration throughout.
You receive the annual payment for the life of the lease. On the agreed return date, the same number of NZUs lands back in your registry account, in time for harvest or back in the nest egg.
Both structures pay you annually and return your units in full. The difference is the shape of the return.
You lease the full parcel for the whole term, typically ten years, and receive a steady annual payment throughout. Suits owners holding units as a long-term asset, or with harvest a decade or more away.
A portion of your units comes back each year. The lease and the payment step down as your return date approaches. Suits owners with staged harvests or a known liability schedule.
This is the question every farmer should ask first, so we put the answer in the agreement, not the brochure.
Your leased units go towards acquiring productive forestry land, and CLM's obligation to return them is secured by a mortgage over that property, registered in your favour. You're invited to do your own due diligence on the land before you commit.
If units aren't returned on the return date, you're entitled to the cash value of your parcel, calculated at the higher of the unit price at commencement or at the return date. A falling market doesn't shrink your claim.
CLM takes no interest in your farm. Your title, your trees and your ETS registration stay where they are. You keep filing your emissions returns as normal.
Sheep and beef country with 20 to 200 ha of post-1989 pines registered in the ETS, banking units against harvest in the 2030s.
Forestry sits alongside stock as the long-hold asset class. The units are staying in the family. They may as well earn their keep.
Units earned under averaging with no surrender ahead, held for the long term. A lease adds yield without selling down the position.
Carbon Land Management is a New Zealand owned carbon investment business based in Central Otago. We come from farming, so we know what a woodlot is worth to a farm and what it takes to look after one.
We lease units from landowners and put them to work acquiring and developing forestry land. The landowner gets paid every year and gets the units back on the agreed date, with registered security over land in the meantime. It's a simple deal and we keep it that way.
During the lease term the units transfer to CLM. That transfer is what lets us put them to work and pay you for it. What you hold instead is CLM's binding obligation to return the same number of NZUs on the agreed date, plus the annual payment, plus registered security over forestry land backing the return. On the return date, units of the same kind land back in your registry account.
You benefit. Because you get back the same number of units rather than a dollar amount, the price upside on the parcel stays yours. Your annual payment is locked at commencement, so it doesn't fall if the market does, either.
That's exactly the situation the lease is designed around. We set the return date ahead of your expected harvest so the units are back in your account before any surrender obligation falls due, and the progressive-return structure can match a staged harvest plan. Your liability timing drives the term, not the other way around.
Two layers. First, a mortgage over the forestry land acquired with your units is registered in your favour. That's real property security, and you can do due diligence on the land before signing. Second, if units aren't returned on time, you're entitled to the cash value of the parcel at the higher of the commencement price or the return-date price.
As a fixed percentage of your units' market value at commencement, using an independent published reference price. It's paid in regular instalments across the term. As a guide, that's around 5.25% per annum on a flat ten-year lease. Your actual rate is set out in your offer and depends on parcel size, term and structure.
Keep doing what you're doing. Maintain your ETS registration, file your emissions returns, manage the forest to normal industry standard, and make sure the units you supply are free of any encumbrance. CLM carries mirror-image obligations on its side, in writing.
The agreement includes a regulatory-change clause: if a law change affects either party's ability to perform, both sides negotiate in good faith to keep the deal working, with a right to exit if no solution is found within a set period. On any exit, accrued payments are settled and your units come back.
Get both. We mean it. The lease has income tax consequences and the agreement is a binding legal document. We'll happily work directly with your accountant and solicitor, and nothing proceeds until they've seen the full documentation. CLM doesn't provide tax, legal or financial advice.
Tell us roughly what you're holding and we'll come back with an indicative annual payment in writing: rate, term, structure and security.
We'll come back to you with an indicative annual payment in writing.