Legislation that will protect and enhance our environment for future
generations has now passed into UK law.
Through the Act, we will clean up the country’s air, restore natural
habitats, increase biodiversity, reduce waste and make better use of our
resources.
It will halt the decline in species by 2030, require new developments to
improve or create habitats for nature, and tackle deforestation overseas.
It will help us transition to a more circular economy, incentivising people
to recycle more, encouraging businesses to create sustainable packaging, making
household recycling easier and stopping the export of polluting plastic waste
to developing countries.
These changes will be driven by new legally binding environmental targets,
and enforced by a new, independent Office for Environmental Protection (OEP)
which will hold government and public bodies to account on their environmental
obligations.
Environment Secretary George Eustice said: “The Environment Act will deliver
the most ambitious environmental programme of any country on earth.
“It will halt the decline of species by 2030, clean up our air and protect
the health of our rivers, reform the way in which we deal with waste and tackle
deforestation overseas.
“We are setting an example for the rest of the world to
follow.”
Simon McWhirter, Director of
Communications, Policy & Places at UKGBC, welcomed the news
that the Environment Bill has now received royal assent.
“With nature and biodiversity in the UK declining at an alarming rate,
ambitious legislation and policy mechanisms are essential if we are to tackle
this worrying trend,” he said. “The built environment in particular has an
important role to play. We welcome the inclusion of biodiversity net gain, and
will continue to work with Government to help ensure new developments can
genuinely help support nature’s recovery.
“We also support the introduction of a new legal targets framework, covering
nature water air and waste, and including a 2030 target to reverse species decline.
UKGBC coordinated a letter
with leading members in 2019, calling for the introduction of clear statutory
targets across these areas, and supported the State of Nature Campaign’s calls
for a specific target to reverse species decline by 2030.
“As these ambitions move into law, we must now focus urgently on
implementation and delivery. We must ensure genuinely positive outcomes are
delivered across key policies such as biodiversity net gain, if we are to
successfully tackle the considerable environmental challenges we face.”
