Having now left the European Union, the UK is gradually modifying aspects of its environmental policy and law and developing new governance arrangements. It has been a period of extensive change, establishing foundations and new approaches with potentially long-term consequences. Amendments are being made to EU derived environmental laws that have been on the UK Statute book for nearly 50 years of EU membership and further change is expected.

The UK Government has stressed the opportunity to be bolder with their environmental ambitions, to make policies and laws more tailored to the UK context and be a world leader in environment and sustainability policy. At the same time policy goals to reduce legislative burdens and adopt more flexible approaches are becoming more prominent, with potential environmental consequences.

IEEP UK’s priority is to engage in the analysis, reflection and debate that will accompany this new generation of policies and the governance that will accompany them to influence policy change in the UK as well as opportunities for future policy design and cooperation between the EU and UK, learning from experience of dealing with similar challenges elsewhere in Europe.