New report – 25 Year Environment Plan: ambition to realisation 

Our new report looks at ways to better support bodies in delivering for the environment. We’ve come up with six recommendations for government.
Report | blog | video

Our environment currently faces unprecedented threats as biodiversity declines and climate predictions worsen. This has triggered widespread citizen demonstration and declarations of a climate and ecological emergency.

At a time when the country is divided and the risk of a low tax, low regulation Brexit outcome appears to be increasing, we need to take positive action on shared environmental concerns.

The government published its 25 Year Environment Plan in 2018, against which progress has been made. CIWEM supports the plan as a way to protect and restore the natural environment we all rely on. However we see that to achieve timely and effective delivery of the plan’s ambitions, bodies need to be better supported and the plan needs a statutory footing through the Environment Bill.

In our new report 25 Year Environment Plan: ambition to delivery we have thoroughly reviewed existing delivery efforts, explored the barriers bodies face and produced a set of six recommendations for government:

1. Update delivery bodies objectives to reflect the plan’s priorities, underpinned by a statutory duty on public bodies to consider and enhance the environment;
2. Facilitate a systems approach to delivery through improved collaboration;
3. Require consistent annual reporting across all delivery bodies for better transparency;
4. Support development of skills needed to take forward elements of the plan;
5. Review current government funding to address issues on amount and security, and
6. Support development of innovative private funding routes.

CIWEM are grateful to everyone who was involved in contributing to and reviewing this report.’ 

Click here to see the Report | blog | video