At no time has the environment been of greater importance and concern than today, a combination of climatic change, and substantial landscape changes and shrinkage of biodiversity makes the future quite uncertain. Researching past environments has a vital role to play both in terms of identifying external factors and their effect on changing environments, and to chart the long-term effects of the social/economic strategies introduced by humans that both increase and mitigate these changes. This is why Environmental Archaeology is so important because at its heart it examines sustainability over the long term. Environmental Archaeology, the scientific study of plant and animal remains from natural and human derived ancient soils and sediments, is fundamental to our understanding of the historic and prehistoric past. It can also play an increasingly important role in addressing contemporary global challenges, such as food security , providing crucial data on past ecosystems and farming practices, offering detailed case studies of human response and adaptation to climate change. Environmental archaeologists are now actively involved in debates about sustainability, and in the development of policy and strategy for present and future land management, for example through reforestation, rewilding and conservation. Clearly, the importance and potential value of the discipline has never been greater. Yet across the UK, expertise and facilities for environmental archaeology research are diminishing. Alarming gaps in capacity are emerging at regional and local scales and in particular specialisms, such as soils science, zooarchaeology and archaeobotany as well as in more specialist methodologies. Across Scotland in particular, there is a growing demand for expertise in environmental archaeology: in research, commercial and community-driven projects. This is not altogether surprising. Scotland's landscapes are some of the most diverse in the UK, with a rich variety of ecologies, many of them poorly understood and now under increased levels of threat. Possessing the greatest breadth and depth of environmental archaeology expertise in Scotland, the UHI Archaeology Institute has the potential to meet these challenges, but not alone. Currently, the impact of our expertise and resources is constrained by existing facilities. Our aim is that in conjunction with the agency Historic Environment Scotland (HES), and in partnership with Orkney Museums, Glasgow University, Southampton University, Archaeology Scotland and SCAPE Trust, we can create a distributed facility for environmental archaeology. This will comprise a suite of laboratories for processing and analysing biological materials at UHI Orkney and the use of the HES Engine Shed in Stirling - Scotland's hub of digital innovation and heritage science - to provide access to new mobile resources for on-site analytical support, and to create and maintain an integrated network of environmental archaeology specialists across Scotland and the UK. This will be achieved through major upgrades at UHI Orkney, a new facility within Orkney Museum, and a mobile environmental sciences laboratory for deployment in different locales throughout Scotland. Through our partnerships we will support access to additional laboratory resources and equipment in Scotland and across the UK, and utilise a communities of practice approach, including citizen-science, to widening access to heritage science. These facilities will: serve researchers, communities, commercial units and museums in Scotland; provide specialist labs and expertise for the UK; enable access to facilities and collections that capitalise on our research expertise and capacity in environmental archaeology, all with potential global reach.