Whatever your view of the British monarchy, King Charles III’s lifelong commitment to environmental causes looks increasingly prophetic, rather than the eccentricity it was once derided as. Never the empire-building, warmongering type of monarch, Charles spent most of his adult life cutting ribbons and hosting tea parties while vocally pursuing his personal interest in nature and conservation. Since his first big speech about pollution and over-consumption in 1970, he has championed environmental causes, long before such activity was popular or mainstream.
He was ridiculed by the British tabloid press throughout the 1980s for converting his farm to organic methods when that was considered a cultish practice; for talking to plants, railing against modern architecture, and banning hairspray in his home to save the ozone layer.
In advance of the Cop26 conference in 2021, hosted by the UK in Glasgow, he converted his Aston Martin to run on a fuel blend made from surplus English white wine and whey from the cheese process. While hardly a scalable solution for transport fuel, he used the opportunity to highlight the importance of concrete actions rather than words.
Mostly, Charles’s views (and his aesthetics) have aged rather well. Since first reading EF Schumacher’s groundbreaking 1973 book, Small is Beautiful: a Study of Economics as if People Mattered, the British monarch communicates a modern environmentalism that incorporates nature restoration, sustainable living and prudent resource management that has a broad appeal to both the horsey Tory conservationists and youthful climate strikers alike.
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Of course, no amount of rewilding projects or climate initiatives can mask the reality that a monarchy is an institution that is fundamentally at odds with any egalitarian society. Nor is it a blueprint for a sustainable future in which, as Schumacher would have argued, decisions are best made at the lowest possible level. While he has certainly promoted a sustainable lifestyle, Charles’s values of responsible and prudent property ownership are not in vogue with most of his fellow super-rich, who according to Oxfam burned through their share of the carbon budget in the first ten days of 2025.
Yet I’m betting that Charles’s vision for stewardship and respect for nature will endure. It certainly helps that the Crown Estate, which is not directly managed by the British royals but influenced by them, owns so much land. The Crown Estate consists of 185,000 acres in England and Wales and a further 87,000 acres in Scotland, and nearly half of the foreshore around England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and virtually all the seabed out to 12 nautical miles around Scotland. It also helps that its mandate is to create lasting and shared prosperity, and not a quick return.
While most of the land is leased rather than managed directly, the Crown Estate has become a leading example of a portfolio managed for long-term impact and with future generations in mind. It netted nearly half a billion pounds in revenues from its offshore wind leases in 2024 alone, and manages its land holdings with a view to creating financial, environmental and social value now and for future generations.
The Crown Estate is not the only good model of corporate sustainability and stewardship by any means. But if the King were toppled by his subjects tomorrow, it is hard to see the Crown Estate, which is supported by Acts of Parliament going back hundreds of years, tumbling with him. Some institutions are built – and designed – to last.
At the root of the British monarchy’s continuous power and enduring influence is land ownership. At present in Ireland, land is being accumulated by non-traditional, non-farming owners, mostly under the guise of stud farming and to exploit a tax loophole that has little to do with intergenerational equity outside of individual families. Prudent land management for nature conservation, carbon storage and associated community benefits requires policy and tenure stability, and also transparency about who actually owns the land.
We also lack a vision for State-owned land, most of which is owned by Coillte. Both Coillte and Bord na Móna – which together own nearly 8 per cent of the land of Ireland – are operating under arguably contradictory and outdated mandates to both return a profit and to manage land for the benefit of people and nature.
Monarchy is an archaic and antiquated way to run a country. But in our own forthcoming presidential election, perhaps there is an opportunity to choose a figurehead who can convincingly articulate the case for respecting nature, for managing land for the benefit of all, and for uniting around a common vision for the future.
