Environment Act 2021 – HSF Latest Thinking

The Environment Act 2021 is a major piece of legislation which radically transforms environmental governance in the UK. Through four cornerstones the Act:

• establishes a new supra regulator of regulators, the Office for Environmental Protection (OEP), which can investigate any public authority failing to comply with environmental law obligations and launch a new environmental review procedure in the courts;
• gives the environmental strategy  for England a statutory basis and framework for progress reports to be scrutinised in Parliament;
• requires the government to set binding targets across various areas of environmental focus (such as biodiversity) to drive change; and
• salvages the core environmental principles that were contained in the EU Treaty, which risked being left outside of domestic law post Brexit.