BrewDog has admitted half of the saplings planted for their million tree Lost Forest died in the first year.

The Scottish Government agency Scottish Forestry has paid the beer company £690,986 to date for the tree planting project on Kinrara Estate, near Aviemore.

The beer giant set out to plant about one million trees after purchasing the estate in 2020, with claims it will help remove twice as much carbon from the environment as it emits, making the company carbon neutral.

But in a statement this week, BrewDog co-founder James Watt said last summer’s “extreme conditions resulted in a higher-than-expected failure rate, particularly Scots pine”, which is one of the 11 species planted on the estate.