22 Jan 2024

The Government does not know if it is making the UK more resilient to flooding. In a new report, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) warns that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has no overall numerical target for the UK’s level of long-term flood resilience, and so cannot know if it is […]

22 Jan 2024

In the State of the Nation 2024 Infrastructure report, the ICE sets out how civil engineers can play a vital role in meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The report focuses specifically on the challenges of providing affordable and resilient transport, water, and low-carbon energy solutions amid the climate crisis. It also features case […]

22 Jan 2024

Defra has announced that biodiversity net gain will go live on 12 February 2024. From this date major development (unless otherwise exempt) will have to deliver net gains for biodiversity leading to positive outcomes for nature, better places for local communities and more consistent and transparent requirements for developers. Which types of development will BNG apply […]

22 Jan 2024

Every year flooding affects communities around the UK. The Chartered Institute for Water and Environmental Management recently contended that although there has been expert agreement for many years about reforms, policy change has been slow. In part, this is due to the complex governance system within which flooding occurs. In this article, Professor Graham Haughton and Professor […]

22 Jan 2024

320 organisations from over 46 countries have committed to start making nature-related disclosures based on the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) Recommendations published in September last year. This first cohort of adopters of the TNFD Recommendations includes leading publicly listed companies across geographies and industry sectors representing US$4 trillion in market capitalisation; over 100 […]

22 Jan 2024

The National Engineering Policy Centre has initiated a new project considering engineering interventions to mitigate the public health risks posed by wastewater pollution of rivers, in-land and coastal waters across the UK. Recreational users of natural bodies of water – including rivers, in-land and coastal waters – are potentially at risk from pollution caused by […]

22 Jan 2024

UKWIR (UK Water Industry Research) has published an update to the Drought Code of Practice to incorporate the experience arising from the 2022 drought.  Consideration has been given to new channels of communication such as social media that was not available in 2013, and agreement has been reached on how to deal with new uses […]

22 Jan 2024

Business for Nature are drafting recommendations for policies, legislation and regulations that put nature at the heart of the global economy. Business for Nature want to hear the views of the business community and a consultation on these recommendations is open until 1 March 2024.