The Icon

The UK's Transport decarbonisation plan has been announced by Transport Secretary Grant Shapps. The plan is set to provide a world-leading ‘greenprint’ to cut emissions from our seas and skies, roads and railways, setting out a credible pathway for the whole transport sector to reach net zero by 2050. Transport Secretary Grant Shapps commented on the announcement: "Transport is not just...

According to the Climate Change Committee, Wales needs to plant around 86 million trees over the next nine years to achieve its ambition of reaching net zero by 2050. Therefore Deputy Minister for Climate Change, Lee Waters, has issued a “national call to arms” to ask the people of Wales to help to deliver the challenge of planting more trees...

Natural England has launched three new tools to help developers measure biodiversity net gain and ensure new developments are “nature positive”. Where a development has an impact on biodiversity, the new metric seeks to ensure that the development is delivered in a way that helps to restore any biodiversity loss and seeks to deliver 'thriving natural spaces for local communities.' The...

New consultation on proposals to extend, expand, and reform the Warm Home Discount scheme to 2026 has been launched. The Warm Home Discount scheme obliges participating energy suppliers to provide rebates to their customers, to reduce energy bills for low-income and vulnerable households and tackle fuel poverty. This consultation proposes to expand and reform the scheme in England and Wales until...

Natural England has launched the first round of Discovery Grants, as part of the Nature for Climate Peatland Grant Scheme, to help support the development of new projects which seek to restore peatland systems to a natural and healthy state across the country. Through the Scheme, the Government intends to invest over £50 million in peat restoration and has pledged to...

The House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) Committee has launched a new inquiry that scrutinises how the UK Government intends to tackle its plastics problem, and whether its targets go far enough. The cross-party Committee will be exploring the measures announced by the Government to achieve both its 2042 goal, and its shorter-term ambition of working towards...

Ofwat is calling on companies to seek additional social and environmental value through the delivery of their services in their latest discussion paper. The water regulator has published a set of proposed principles to underpin how water companies can deliver greater public value. This principles-based approach aims to provide a framework for the activities and behaviours we want to see companies...

The Government should follow the principles set out by Climate Assembly UK and ensure fairness underpins net zero transition, according to a new Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) Committee report. Titled, 'Climate Assembly UK: where are we now?', the report makes a series of recommendations to Government on public engagement and education, on deliberative democracy, and on the net...

Finance Minister Conor Murphy has announced a new policy which will see mandatory scoring of social value within public procurement contracts. The new policy, agreed by the Executive, mandates that from June 2022, tenders must include a minimum of 10% of total award criteria to social value. This will apply to service contracts valued above £123,000 and construction contracts valued...

Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) is seeking views on their proposals to strengthen the Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS). The specific aims of improving the scheme are: To increase the number of ESOS participants that take action to reduce energy use by raising the quality of their ESOS audit; To increase the carbon and cost savings from ESOS...