We asked about the environmental records of Scotland’s 25 best golf courses. The US president’s resort in the north east was the only one to breach its licence in recent years.
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Climate change is causing rising sea levels and coastal erosion and 109 Scottish golf courses are at risk. We examined the issue as part of Green drive: Golf and the environmental crisis – a special Ferret series on golf and the environment.
We asked about the environmental records of Scotland’s 25 best golf courses. The US president’s resort in the north east was the only one to breach its licence in recent years.
Donald Trump’s Aberdeenshire resort is the only one of Scotland’s top golf venues confirmed to have broken environmental rules in recent years, The Ferret has found.
Trump International on the Menie estate in the north east has touted its “first class” approach to the environment and described a second 18-hole course built there last year as “one of the most environmentally friendly and sustainable” ever.
But records obtained by The Ferret show that it is the only one of Scotland’s best courses which the green watchdog confirmed breached its environmental licence over the last three years.
As part of our ‘Green Drive’ series, examining golf’s impact on the environment, we submitted freedom of information requests to the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) seeking the environmental records of 25 of the country’s top-rated courses.
Sampling by Sepa at Trump International – which is home to two courses as well as a luxury hotel and bars – found it was not compliant with its licence on four occasions in 2024 and twice in 2025.
All six incidents relate to discharges of wastewater from a private sewage system connected to the clubhouse.
There is no evidence that any of them caused environmental harm. Sepa said last year that while it expected “better performance” it considered the actual environmental impact of the incidents to be “minimal”.
None of the other courses examined – including iconic venues like St Andrews, Carnoustie, Muirfield and Gleneagles – were found by Sepa to have breached their own licences over the same period.
Critics said the findings were “par for the course” for Trump and that a “billionaire-owned luxury resort for the affluent” should be taking “better care of its effluents”.
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“Trump is a notorious cheat when playing golf, so Sepa must make sure his courses in Scotland are not allowed to cheat the rules when it comes to protecting the environment,” one added.
Trump International said it would be “categorically wrong” to suggest that the wastewater system was causing environmental damage and accused Sepa of insisting on a “particularly intense level of monitoring” at the site.
It pointed out that the licence for the sewage system had been repeatedly renewed by the regulator since 2013.
Sepa said last year that while it expected “better performance” it considered the actual environmental impact of the incidents to be “minimal”.
The US president’s flagship Scottish golf development in Aberdeenshire has long been controversial, with its environmental impact facing significant scrutiny both before and after the first course opened in 2012.
It was built on a four thousand-year-old sand dune system at Menie which had been a site of special scientific interest (SSSI) and was considered of “exceptional importance” for a “wide variety of coastal landforms and processes”. The dunes were also home to rare plants and animals.
Trump is a notorious cheat when playing golf, so Sepa must make sure his courses in Scotland are not allowed to cheat the rules. — Rosie Hampton, Friends of the Earth Scotland
The site lost its SSSI status in 2020 after wildlife agency NatureScot determined that the dunes had been altered to the extent that they no longer included “enough of the special natural features for which they were designated”.
Last year, we revealed that the course had caused further damage to dunes after pumping water onto them during heavy rain.
Trump visited Scotland last year to open a second course at the complex – the ‘MacLeod course’, which is named after his Scottish-born mother, Mary Anne MacLeod.
Trump International said in 2024 that the new course would be “one of the most environmentally friendly and sustainable courses" ever built. That claim was dismissed as “laughable” by one expert given the “severe and irreparable” damage caused to the dunes during the building of the first course.
Five of the breaches of the resort’s environmental licence since 2024 were reported by investigative outlet Unearthed last year. The Ferret has uncovered a sixth breach in the second half of 2025.
Sepa records show that most of the breaches involved samples of wastewater from the private wastewater system which showed levels of biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) above permitted limits. BOD is an indicator of how much organic material, potentially including sewage, is present in water.
As organic material breaks down it uses up oxygen, leaving less available for fish and other aquatic life.
Five of the incidents in 2024 and 2025 were linked to high BOD levels. Four were classed as “lower tier” exceedances, while one – in August 2024 – was recorded as an “upper tier” breach, which could potentially pose a higher risk to the environment.
Sampling that month also recorded an upper tier breach for suspended solids in wastewater discharges – a measure of particles in the water. High levels of suspended solids can cloud water, blocking light needed by plants for photosynthesis and potentially damaging the gills of fish.
Sepa said in response to Unearthed last year: “The treated effluent passes through a soakaway system after the sampling point, providing further natural filtration before entering the ground. The soakaway significantly reduces the risk of the effluent impacting the environment.”
Trump International was also found to be non-compliant nine times back in 2019, with the incidents also related to wastewater sampling.
Assessments of the resort’s compliance with its licence are unavailable for 2020, 2021 and 2022 when a criminal cyber attack on Sepa limited the amount of sampling the regulator could carry out.
In 2023, all samples taken at the course were compliant.
The Scottish Greens MSP for the north east of Scotland, Maggie Chapman, claimed the breaches showed a “familiar pattern of disregard” for the environment and called for Sepa to ensure there are “real consequences for persistent non-compliance”.
Environmental licences exist for a reason – to protect local communities, wildlife and our waters. — Maggie Chapman MSP
She added: “Environmental licences exist for a reason – to protect local communities, wildlife and our waters.”
Rosie Hampton, campaigns manager at Friends of the Earth Scotland, accused Trump of repeatedly showing a “complete disregard for the communities who face the brunt of his actions”. “Trump is a notorious cheat when playing golf, so Sepa must ensure his courses in Scotland are not allowed to cheat the rules when it comes to protecting the environment,” Hampton said.
A spokesperson for Greenpeace UK said it “might be time for the environmental watchdog [Sepa] to come out swinging”.
They argued: “This is par for the course for Donald Trump. A billionaire-owned luxury resort for the affluent should afford to take better care of its effluents.”
Sarah Malone, executive vice president at Trump International said: “It would be categorically wrong to suggest that our [wastewater] system was causing environmental damage and we would not hesitate to challenge such an assertion by any means necessary.
“Sepa granted a licence for our clubhouse to operate a private wastewater management system in 2013. That licence has been renewed repeatedly since then and has never been refused.
“From the outset, Sepa has insisted on a particularly intense level of monitoring of wastewater management at the site. A vast number of samples have been analysed by both Sepa and specialist environmental engineers we commissioned.
“The licence has not been breached 14 times [since 2019] – that is incorrect given that a certain number of exceedances are permitted when the frequency of monitoring is taken into account. Any exceedances have been very rare.
“The specialist environmental engineers we commissioned to undertake a parallel monitoring exercise contested SEPA’s findings on the occasional minor infractions.”
Malone added that the course was “extremely proud” of its “environmental contribution”. “Extensive native grasses have been planted, many hectares of indigenous vegetation have been translocated, and new wetland and dune-slack habitats are flourishing,” she said.
Sepa used to publish assessments for the more than 5,000 sites it regulates across the country – rating compliance with each site’s environmental licences – but these have not been available since 2019.
Trump’s other Scottish golf course – at Turnberry in Ayrshire – was among those branded as “poor” in 2018 because it repeatedly exceeded the amount of water it was allowed to take to irrigate the course.
Turnberry was among the 25 top-rated courses that we asked about in our freedom of information requests and has had no recorded similar breaches in recent years.
Information about one other course – Royal Dornoch – was withheld because of a live investigation. The course said this related to water abstraction limits and it was resolving the issue “amicably” with Sepa.
A spokesperson for the regulator told The Ferret it regulates activities using a “risk-based approach” and that “monitoring requirements and regulatory activity will vary according to the activities undertaken at each site”.
“Where issues are identified which require further action, we take proportionate action in line with our regulatory approach,” they said.
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