Research and analysis

Environment Agency Chief Regulator’s report 2023-24

Published 17 January 2025

Applies to England

Foreword by the Environment Agency’s Chief Regulator, Jo Nettleton

The Environment Agency has an enormous regulatory remit a cross more than 40 regimes. From flooding to water quality, from fisheries to nuclear power, from carbon to nature, our regulation covers so much of what is important to our country. What we do, how we do it, and the resulting outcomes are critical to the environment and us all – now and for future generations. 

It is therefore vital that we demonstrate how we regulate in a way that is consistently proportionate and effective. To help do this, we have introduced a new Chief Regulator role to ensure that our regulation is future-focused, effective and trusted, providing influential technical leadership across all our regulatory activities. 

As the Chief Regulator, I will be a critical friend to the Environment Agency, ensuring the organisation is making the improvements it needs to and holding it to account.

I will lead the Environment Agency’s work in supporting compliant businesses to thrive, grow and transform. This underscores our commitment to a collaborative, inclusive regulatory culture, amplifying collective efforts to protect and enhance the environment.

I want to increase confidence in our regulation. By fostering strong relationships with businesses, the communities we serve, government, and partner regulators, we will tackle issues of importance together and ensure a safe, reliable and sustainable approach to all regulation.

I will ensure we listen to and act on sound evidence to further develop our approach, and that we do this in a transparent way that builds trust. Our regulation should support good business – it should not be unnecessarily burdensome or overly complex. It should enable businesses to focus on maintaining compliance and provide confidence for investment, innovation and development. Our regulation plays an important role in delivering the government’s missions on kickstarting economic growth and making Britain a clean energy superpower.

However, our regulation must also have teeth – we need to take firm action against those whose performance falls below standard, so that they improve, are held to account and do not gain advantage from cutting corners. There must be a level playing field for those who do comply. I work with the Environment Agency’s specialist enforcement teams to ensure that regulation translates into compliance and that serious non-compliance is brought to book. I work with the Environment Agency’s Chief Prosecutor and Chief Scientist in ensuring that appropriate action can be brought against those who do not comply with their permits and legal obligations.

Much of our regulation is recognised as leading the way on the global stage. For example, we are developing world-leading Best Available Techniques (BAT) which will play a major role in supporting decarbonisation technology, helping to maximise the opportunities for net zero transition and maximise growth opportunities. We work with international organisations and networks such as the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), the European Union Network for the Implementation and Enforcement of Environmental Law (IMPEL), the European Network of Prosecutors for the Environment (ENPE) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to support improved standards of international environmental regulation and protection, and we take opportunities to learn from other countries.

But there are areas where we need to improve – to be more effective, both in supporting sustainable growth and in driving improved performance and stopping criminal activity. We are supporting the current government reviews on regulation and look forward to helping to deliver any improvements that are recommended. Long-term, we need to transform our regulation to ensure we are effective and resilient through the decades ahead. We are already on that journey – for example, by digitally transforming our regulatory services to make them more efficient and easier to use. This is helping businesses to work more effectively and supports them to do the right thing to achieve and maintain the necessary performance in a changing world.

This same digital transformation is also improving our own efficiency, equipping our staff with future-ready skills. This will help deliver government priorities to support business and economic growth and provide high quality data to target action against poor performers. We need to be agile and adaptable to accommodate regulation of new technology and keep pace with change. Continuing investment in our digital work is vital to enable us to deliver modern, effective regulatory and customer services.

I do not underestimate the scale of the challenges ahead, but I am heartened by the progress we are already making – there is a lot to already be proud of. Our Water Industry Regulation Transformation Programme, launched in June 2023, heralds a new approach to how we regulate the water industry, helping us uncover non-compliance and push water companies to perform better. I too am committed to pushing the Environment Agency further and being the best regulator we can be – for people and the environment.

About the author

I am proud and delighted to have been appointed to the Chief Regulator role and took up the post on 1 April 2024. I bring extensive experience in regulation from roles at the Environment Agency, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (predecessor to the Office for Nuclear Regulation).

My role as Chief Regulator is threefold:

1. Leading the profession – building and advocating for the Environment Agency’s regulatory profession, guiding and representing the Environment Agency’s team of regulators.

2. Setting the standards – defining the Environment Agency’s regulatory strategy and standards, developing assurance and evaluation frameworks to support high-quality regulation.

3. Designing the future – fostering innovation and adaptability by drawing on external insights to evolve regulatory approaches.

Introduction

Welcome to our first ever Environment Agency Chief Regulator’s report. This replaces the Regulating for People, the Environment and Growth reports from previous years.

As we face a rapidly changing world, our role as environmental regulator is crucial to supporting the country’s transformation to meet the challenges posed by climate change, while protecting the environment and communities.

Our regulatory responsibilities span major industry regulation, flood defence, land contamination, water quality, waste regulation, fisheries and nature. This broad scope calls for diverse, multi-skilled teams and technical leadership. Our regulation brings about significant improvements in protection of the environment, enables the country to adapt to emerging challenges and supports sustainable growth.

Harnessing the power of skilled people, developing innovative systems and regulatory tools, and working with colleagues across the Environment Agency and beyond, we strive to ensure we are a trusted and effective regulator.

My report reviews activities regulated by the Environment Agency in 2023-24. It is in 3 parts, supported by a separate evidence annex.

The first part summarises the performance of those we regulate. As well as highlighting areas of concern and the improvements that I want to see. It recognises the very many businesses that are compliant, or even going beyond compliance and who understand the important role they play in protecting the environment, nature and communities.

The second part of this report focuses on our performance as a regulator. It covers 4 themes that reflect the Environment Agency’s priorities for regulation:

• supporting sustainable economic growth and innovation while protecting and improving our environment
• our regulatory team
• regulating effectively
• transforming our regulation for the future

In this section, I have shared some of the work that I am leading. I want to ensure across all our regulation (including permissions, compliance inspection and enforcement) we have a consistent approach aimed at supporting sustainable growth and improving the performance of those we regulate. To do this, we need well designed regulation. My work will help to shape future regulation by developing our team of regulatory professionals and increasing the transparency of our regulation. 

Our regulation is vital to enabling growth and innovation, while not reducing standards of protection. To do that, I am committed to ensuring that we continue to improve our processes (such as permitting) and also work with government to explore how regulatory reform might increase our ability to do so.

This section also presents examples of how our investment in digital transformation is unlocking regulatory efficiencies and effectiveness as well as improved customer services.

The final part of my report is forward looking. It sets out some of the changes to the regulatory system that I believe will strengthen our ability as a country to respond to a changing environment and support government priorities on the transition to net zero, the circular economy and boosting sustainable economic growth. These are ambitious, often complex and long-term commitments, requiring government, regulators, communities and industry to work together. But if we get it right, they will more than repay the effort.

Part 1 – 2023 business performance overview

Each year we review the data and evidence we have on the environmental performance of the businesses and activities we regulate in England. Our data for the year 2023 is presented in detail in the evidence annex to this report. In the following section, I have picked out some areas of concern where I would like to see improvement. 

Regulating industry under the Environmental Permitting Regulations (EPR)

Of the 14,009 waste and process industry permitted activities we regulate:

93% were good performers in the top 2 compliance bands, A and B

This is an improvement on 92% in 2015 and 91% in 2010.

2.7% were poor performers in bands D, E and F

This has improved from 3.2% in 2015.

The reasons for poor compliance include general management issues, in particular, inadequate management systems, storage and handling, and materials acceptance. 

73% of all industrial EPR permits cover waste activities.

For permitted activities in the waste sector, the rate of non-compliance (permits in bands D, E or F) is 3.3%

The rate of non-compliance for all other sectors (excluding waste) combined is 1.1%

This means that 89% of all non-compliant industrial EPR sites are in the waste sector. The most serious non-compliances in the waste sector were due to general management issues, in particular, inadequate management systems, storage and handling, and staff competency and training. 

Although only a small proportion of sites are non-compliant, these businesses can cause significant environmental impacts and distress for the local communities affected. They can also undermine the profitability of compliant businesses. Our data shows some poor performers are moving towards compliance. Our targeted advice, guidance and enforcement action has been effective at improving compliance. We expect businesses to comply with the regulations that apply to them. We are happy to help them understand what they need to do if they are unsure.

Case study: bringing poor performers into compliance

We identified several regulatory challenges at a site that was stockpiling and shredding large amounts of waste tyres without the necessary permits. The site posed a significant fire risk and generated noise complaints from local residents and businesses.

To address these issues, we de-registered multiple exemptions held by the site and served notices to suspend their permits and remove the waste tyres. We inspected the site fortnightly in partnership with the fire service and the local council. The site began exporting tyres through legitimate routes and all tyres were removed. We prosecuted and the site operators pleaded guilty to various charges related to operating without the necessary permits. Sentences included suspended imprisonment, unpaid work, and fines. We maintained consistent communication with the site operator. The site is now compliant with its waste exemptions and has also submitted a permit variation to be able to accept 50 tonnes of waste tyres per week alongside its end-of-life vehicle activities.

Poor compliance and poor performance are areas where I want to see improvement. This year we have continued to invest in more staff and resources to monitor and promote compliance, especially in the water industry, agriculture and waste sectors. This increased scrutiny will likely uncover more non-compliance. Performance will initially look worse, but this doesn’t mean impacts on the environment are getting worse. In the long term, more regulatory effort should improve compliance and reduce poor performance.

Waste crime

In 2023, we prevented waste criminals from illegally exporting 33,978 tonnes of waste

The total estimated revenue to the UK economy from this waste, prevented and stopped at site, was almost £3.5 million. We have introduced additional measures to tackle illegal exports. These include increasing desktop inspections by requesting information from waste sites that had issues with exports in the past.

At the end of March 2024, we recorded 344 illegal waste sites as being active

This was down from 407 at the end of March 2023 and the lowest number on our records.

Despite our work on waste crime and our data showing a steady decline in active illegal waste sites, I know there is still a lot to do. Our 2023 waste crime survey estimated:

• only a quarter of waste crime is reported
• 18% of all waste is perceived as being illegally managed
• over 40% of businesses within the waste industry believe they have been affected by waste crime

The environmental and economic impact of waste crime is huge. It costs the taxpayer and economy an estimated £1 billion each year. This money is being taken away from other essential services to deal with the damage caused by waste criminals. Tackling waste crime is a priority for us as it affects the environment, local communities and legitimate businesses.

We can’t tackle waste crime alone. I want our strong relationship with the police and other agencies to continue. In 2025, we will carry on building new ways of working with partners across government to tackle waste crime.

Case study: Operations Lyceum and Iris, cracking down on waste criminals

Our officers and the Joint Unit for Waste Crime visited several sites across England in January 2023.

The proactive operation checked lorries outside waste sites. The aim was to stop the movement of misdescribed waste and prevent it from being incorrectly and unsafely disposed of. 

Officers spoke with 30 lorry drivers regarding the cargoes they were transporting and tested 9 lorries for hazardous waste. Police also seized a stolen generator worth £15,000 and followed up on lorry drivers who attempted to evade inspection. 

The operation was undertaken with partners including the police, HM Revenue and Customs and the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency. Vehicles and drivers were checked for other offences, such as tax evasion and vehicle defects.

Water industry performance 

Water industry performance has been under a lot of scrutiny in recent years and rightly so. We published our annual report on the environmental performance of water and sewerage companies in July 2024, including our Environmental Performance Assessment (EPA).

5 of the 9 water and sewerage companies were rated as requiring improvement

7 of the 9 water and sewerage companies caused 47 serious incidents in total

This is an increase on the 44 serious incidents in 2022, but numbers have generally been coming down from the 59 serious incidents in 2015.

Storm overflow permits we issue to water companies legally oblige them to report event duration monitoring (EDM) data. We analyse the data to check how often and for how long companies use their storm overflows. By December 2023, water companies had fitted EDMs to 100% of the 14,530 storm overflows across the water network in England.

In 2023, EDM data showed there was a total of 464,056 spills compared with 301,091 in 2022

The increase in spills compared to 2022 is partly because 2023 was named by the Met Office as the sixth wettest year since its records began in 1836. Rainfall is the primary driver of storm overflow spills, given surface water run-off can put pressure on England’s combined sewerage network. However, we’re clear that heavy rainfall does not affect water companies’ responsibility to manage storm overflows in line with legal requirements. The higher number of spills in 2023 reinforces the importance of water companies’ obligation to maintain and invest in their assets. 

The higher number of recorded spills in 2023 is also because there is now 100% coverage on storm overflows. More monitors mean more data and an unparalleled level of transparency, enabling us to hold the water industry to account. The main pollutants in water arising from water company discharges that are permitted within limits, include phosphorus, ammonia, biochemical oxygen demand (BOD, a measure of organic pollution) and chemicals. We know from our evidence, where water company investment and improvements are made, good environmental outcomes have been achieved. We have seen large reductions in these pollutants discharged to rivers from sewage treatment works.

However, previous and current performance of the water industry is not good enough. We have a part to play and acknowledge where we can make further improvements too. We are transforming the way we regulate the water industry. I look forward to seeing the improvement that our transformation programme and our increased compliance and enforcement work can deliver in 2025.

We, and the public, want more for the water environment. This will take time as improving and protecting the quality of rivers, coasts, estuaries and groundwater is complex. There are no simple solutions to deliver the change overnight and no sector can do it alone. There are multiple pressures on England’s inland and coastal waters: 36% of water bodies are affected by wastewater, 40% by farming, 18% by towns, cities and transport, and 3% by abandoned metal mines. Regulation, investment and transparency have all led to improvements in water quality – we know these are effective levers to tackle the issues, but more must be done across all sources.

Water resources

In 2023, we received abstraction licence returns from 86% of licence holders required to submit them.

In 2023, we recorded 1,065 non-compliances against 761 abstraction licences (around 4% of all licences)

Most licence compliance breaches were recorded against agricultural (44%) and water industry (19%) licences. In 170 cases (16% of non-compliances) licence holders were found to have taken more water than their licence allowed. This non-compliance can affect other legitimate water users or adversely affect nature and the water environment.

By 2050, to support the growing population, economy, food production and the environment, an additional 5 billion litres of water is estimated to be needed every day. This is more than a third of the 14 billion litres of water currently put into public water supply. The natural capacity of some areas for water availability are, or close to, being exceeded. This risks stifling economic growth by restricting what developments and businesses an area can support, as well as what nature and people need. I expect businesses abstracting and using water to consider the long-term resilience of England’s water resources alongside their immediate needs. Unless we invest in our water resources and stop wasting water, there will not be enough for drinking, farming and industry in the future. I want to see improvements in compliance to protect this vital resource for nature, people and growth.

Case study: water company prosecution for taking too much water

During a routine compliance inspection, we discovered that a water company had breached its abstraction licences by taking too much water from an aquifer (an underground water store). We found that over 22 billion litres of water was taken without permission. This is enough to fill over 8,800 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

This over-abstraction caused additional stress on the environment during a period of very dry weather. It led to a significant decline in the water level and risked the long-term viability of the water supply.

Our action ended the offending, returning the licence holder to compliance. The company was prosecuted by our in-house prosecution team, pleaded guilty and was fined £800,000.

Agricultural performance

In 2023, farming activities caused 53 serious pollution incidents, increasing from 45 in 2022. The majority were from dairy and beef businesses and were caused by silage and slurry store containment and control failures. 

Our recent increase in agricultural resources means we have been able to carry out more farm inspections. We made 3,940 targeted farm inspections at 3,754 non-permitted farms in 2023, compared with 3,173 inspections in 2022.

42% of farms inspected were non-compliant with environmental regulations

The need for improvements to yard infrastructure, slurry and silage stores and better soil testing are some of the common issues we regularly identify during our inspections. We need farm businesses to make improvements to minimise the risk of ongoing pollution and serious pollution incidents from farmyards and land affecting water.

In 2022, 84% of all ammonia emissions to air in England were from farming. Farms not required to hold a permit under EPR emitted 93% of farming ammonia emissions to air in 2022. But there was a 4% reduction in ammonia emissions to air from permitted pig and poultry farms between 2022 and 2023, continuing a downward trend in these emissions since 2018.

I want to see improvements from this sector. We know that agriculture is one of the most significant influences on water quality and water-dependent ecosystems. Agricultural businesses have a significant role to play in protecting water and the wider environment. We will continue to give them advice and guidance to come into compliance. We will take enforcement action where necessary.

Serious pollution incidents 

We recorded 569 serious pollution incidents in 2023

54% were caused by sites or activities that we do not regulate under an EPR environmental permit. 29% were caused by activities with permits and 17% by an unidentified source.

Most serious pollution incidents from permitted sites came from the waste sector, mainly waste treatment (noise and odour related) and landfills (mostly odour related). This tallies with our enforcement data. Over half of prosecutions and almost 80% of enforcement notices were brought against the waste sector (transfer stations, metal recycling and non-inert landfill). Odour and noise from these sites continue to be a big problem for some local communities.

As I have already highlighted in this report, agriculture and water and sewerage companies continue to cause high numbers of pollution incidents.

From the odour pollution reports in 2023 we identified 54 serious odour pollution incidents

Numbers of serious odour incidents have generally increased from 34 in 2015.

Although waste activities are the source of a large proportion of the odour incidents reported to us, other sectors including food and drink sites and agriculture also contribute.

Our understanding of the impact of odour is improving. Odour pollution is a major cause of public concern and can have a significant negative effect on quality of life, including health issues, anxiety, and stress-related illnesses. I want businesses to take this more seriously and consider the impact on the communities that surround them.

We continue to update the training and guidance available to our staff regulating and responding to odour incidents. In line with our risk-based approach to regulation, we are also working to reduce incidents at poor performing sites.

Businesses and climate change

Businesses are being impacted by climate change and need to adapt to make sure they remain economically viable while meeting their environmental obligations. Businesses also have an important role in supporting decarbonisation.

Contributing to net zero

Business innovation and investment in technologies and operations will be vital in supporting net zero transition, the circular economy and sustainable economic growth.

Businesses that have joined some of the industrial decarbonisation schemes we administer, are reducing their greenhouse gas emissions, particularly carbon emissions. One such scheme is the UK Emissions Trading Scheme (UK ETS) that applies to installations (energy intensive industries and the power generation sector) and aviation.

In 2023, the UK ETS for installations delivered a 14 million tonnes reduction of carbon dioxide compared to 2022

This equates to an estimated £3.5 billion in carbon cost savings

In 2023-24, businesses in the scheme achieved an impressive 99% compliance rate. This success means the scheme is set to expand over the next few years. Plans to include other sectors such as energy from waste, waste incineration and domestic shipping, is great news for the environment.

The role of regulation in enabling net zero is to provide a framework that minimises the impacts on people and the environment. It must also ensure that current and future development operates within environmental boundaries. Where resource demands exceed environmental capacity, for example by depleting water supplies, there is a risk to both economic growth (not enough water for industry) and a risk to the environment (not enough water for nature). Where pollution levels exceed the ability of the environment to recover, there is a risk that local places suffer from poor air or water quality, affecting people and their communities. The regulatory framework needs to enable strategic decisions that support both environmental recovery and government priorities on net zero, ensuring sustainable land use change, alongside business and development needs.

Additionally, regulation provides industry with a level playing field and regulatory certainty. I want companies to have confidence to invest in the innovations and technologies needed to adapt to and mitigate climate change. Our regulatory approach can support those businesses by being fair, proportionate and consistent.

Case study: the Hydrogen Carbon Capture Use and Storage (HCCUS) Programme

The move towards a net zero UK by 2050 will see large scale development of new and novel technologies at new and existing sites that the Environment Agency will regulate. The Hydrogen, Carbon Capture Use and Storage (HCCUS) Programme has been set up to work with industry, regulators, trade bodies and government to provide advice, develop standards and guidance and enable permitting of these new technologies. The programme will coordinate the Environment Agency’s approach to meeting the environmental challenges relating to the introduction of emerging technologies such as hydrogen production and carbon capture use and storage. Environmental pressures affecting habitats, water quality and availability and cumulative air quality impacts will be managed, while ensuring that people and the environment are protected.

Work on environmental capacity will inform the work of the HCCUS programme and permitting decisions as part of the strategic development of the HCCUS sector. We are supporting the development of low carbon technology deployments such as carbon capture and storage and hydrogen production in key industrial clusters including Humberside, Teesside and the Northwest/Hynet area. Industrial clusters will undergo significant redevelopment that will require holistic consideration of low carbon technology developments.

Industrial developments within the low-carbon sector may require permits from the Environment Agency in addition to those already required under EPR. Permits for Net Zero Teesside and Essar Oil which formed part of the CCUS Track 1 (Hynet and East coast clusters) have been issued.

Supporting clean energy

The nuclear sector and the new nuclear power stations under construction will play an important role in helping the UK achieve energy security and clean power. We continue to work with government and the industry to build our capability and enable future development and effective regulation in this area. In 2023, nuclear power stations provided just over 14% of total electricity generated in the UK. Almost 90% of this capacity is due to be retired by 2030.

In 2023, we continued our design assessment of the UK Rolls-Royce Small Modular Reactor design and continued our regulation of the construction of the new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point C. We also granted all 3 operational environmental permits for Sizewell C and provided permitting pre-application advice and guidance for early-stage construction and on planning matters. Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C are each capable of meeting 7% of the UK’s future electricity needs.

Adapting to climate change impacts

Our survey of over 1,600 EPR and Control of Major Accident Hazards regulations (COMAH) operators shows how prepared regulated industries are for climate change impacts.

2/3 of operators have committed to embed climate change adaptation into their management systems, with top management oversight

Operators recognise that a wide range of climate impacts can threaten safety and environmental performance. However, in 2023, only a quarter had benchmarked and were improving in line with our adaptation standards and guidance.

While many operators manage present day impacts, not all are prepared for extremes recently observed (including extreme heatwaves, wildfires and flooding). I’m concerned that only a few businesses assess for risks that will increase in the future.

There is a wide recognition of insufficient capabilities and resources to enable adaptation among the sectors we regulate. Work is urgently required to improve this. There is also an observed lack of implementation of adaption action. Some of these actions can be relatively low cost, for example, testing and improving extreme weather emergency plans.

Our survey shows progress and that many businesses are thinking about their resilience to climate change. Yet we continue to see increasing threats from the impacts of climate change to those we regulate. There is an urgent need for them to build resilience to climate driven weather extremes. It is becoming more difficult for sites to prevent and mitigate accidents and comply with the environmental and safety legislation we regulate.

We will continue our informing and enabling approach to adaptation aspects of our regulatory activities. I want to support businesses by carrying out adaptation focused inspections and audits.

Part 2 – Our performance: regulation 2023-24

Effective and proportionate regulation is vital for our country’s growth and transformation to meet the challenges posed by climate change, while protecting the environment and communities. This includes both the legal framework itself and how we regulate. This section focuses on our performance as a regulator. It covers 4 themes that reflect the Environment Agency’s priorities for regulation: 

• supporting sustainable economic growth and innovation while protecting and improving our environment
• our regulatory team
• regulating effectively
• transforming our regulation for the future

I have set out how we are performing in these areas, our ambitions and where we need to improve. I look forward to reporting further on our progress next year. 

Theme 1 – Supporting sustainable economic growth and innovation while protecting and improving the environment

Effective regulation is important to secure sustainable economic growth, environmental protection and nature recovery. We need regulation that not only protects nature and people, but also looks forward to supporting climate change adaptation, the transition to net zero and the circular economy at scale. Good regulation provides a level playing field for legitimate businesses to operate in. It enables businesses to focus on maintaining compliance and provides confidence for investment, innovation and development

In combination with regulation, we have a vital role in both strategic planning and partnerships. We provide advice on the environmental viability of future development in terms of sustainability and regulatory requirements. We use our local presence, our national voice and our scientific knowledge to help support and achieve sustainable growth locally and nationally.

Customer services

We have significant programmes of work in place to make our regulation more effective, efficient and deliver better value for money. Transformation programmes focus on our biggest areas of risk, impacts on regulated customers, and our duty to protect and enhance the environment. I am pleased to share some examples of our transformation activities.

Digital transformation

We have established the Regulatory Services Programme (RSP) to digitally transform our environmental regulation. This includes the digital regulatory needs associated with the Plan for Water and Waste Regulatory Reform. Having one delivery programme ensures that we will have a consistent set of digital capabilities and business processes that underpin all our environmental regulation. Our digital transformation efforts have successfully delivered both external and internal-facing services. The combined benefits include:

• improved user experience for external users through more services being available online
• operational productivity gains of £5.3 million within the Environment Agency
• delivering reusable solutions, saving £10.8 million
• decommissioning 10 strategic legacy regulated industry systems – this has reduced cost, cyber security risks and risks of failure
• providing more than 40,000 data improvements during migration activities

RSP work completed during 2022-23 delivered £23.4 million of benefits at end of Q4 2023-24. This includes an estimated £344,000 in savings to business.

Permitting improvements

Our permitting work has been under considerable capacity pressure. This has affected the timeliness of our services, especially in complex areas of regulation. I recognise the criticality of timely permitting decisions to business. We are implementing an ambitious Transformation Programme to drive further improvements to our permitting system. We will increase the pace of delivering simpler permits and give applicants greater certainty and transparency around the processing of more complex permits. We work closely with companies and their consultants to understand and support their timelines as much as possible.

In the past 2 years, permitting performance has improved by over 20% and backlogs have halved

Customer complaints about our permitting activities have reduced by 50% since 2022-23. Feedback from our staff confirm that improvements are being acknowledged by customers and plans for improvement are supported.

We have adopted a new validation process, to quality check permit applications within a month of receipt. This identifies poor and incomplete applications more quickly. We hope that improving our guidance will lead to better quality permit applications.

Around 25% of all permit applications do not have sufficient information when they are submitted

Common causes of delays are:

• poor quality applications leading to requests for additional information
• novel and complex applications that challenge legislative or technical frameworks that legislation require us to operate within
• challenges securing appropriate technical skills to deliver the most complex applications

Our Permitting Transformation Programme has driven significant improvements to our permitting service in recent years. We must continue to improve and work with government to address difficult issues around digital transformation, regulatory reform, skills and charges.

Supporting business

We use our evidence to provide advice and guidance to government to support it with its regulatory reform work. This supports economic growth by improving the regulations and implementation for business and the environment.

Case study: supporting green energy development through groundwater permitting reform

We provided support to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) by implementing its recent amendments to EPR for the permitting of groundwater activity discharges. These reforms have eased the regulatory burden on green energy development, including:

• allowing the majority of small to medium-scale ground source heat pump developments to be exempted from permitting requirements
• introducing middle tier (standard rules) permitting approaches rather than full bespoke permitting for groundwater discharges – this will ease the permitting effort for many sectors such as housing developments, cemetery developments and larger geothermal energy processes
• removing the legal blockers on ‘direct discharges’ to some developments concerned with green energy, deep geothermal and onshore oil and gas schemes
• enabling a more risk-based, proportionate regulatory approach for discharges resulting from the remediation of groundwater pollution from land contamination sites – thereby facilitating the redevelopment of brownfield sites and bringing sites back into beneficial use

Supporting a circular economy

Our Definition of Waste (DoW) service provides additional clarity for our regulated customers on whether a material is a waste, a by-product or has reached ‘end of waste’ status. It was introduced in 2018 to facilitate the sustainable and environmentally beneficial use of waste-derived materials and to bring waste materials back into use by the market.

This supports a circular economy providing, on average, £9 million of recurring economic benefits per year to industry (based on yearly figures from 2020 to present)

The regulations are complex and can often be difficult to interpret or apply to innovative uses of ‘waste’ materials. This can cause more risk to the environment by stifling reuse and recycling. Equally, the regulatory framework can lack the agility to effectively regulate new products and risk damaging the economic and social value of our natural resources. Our DoW service offers an important but small-scale solution to a larger problem. Departmental regulatory reform is required to develop sustainable reuse of waste that protects and enhances the environment and promotes the circular economy.

In 2023-24 we started to implement reforms and supported Defra with the extended producer responsibility for packaging waste. The Packaging Extended Producer Responsibility Regulations came into force on 1 January 2025. This fundamental reform will contribute approximately £1.4 billion to the UK’s economy, through shifting the financial burden from taxpayers and local government to producers (businesses that supply packaging onto the UK market) for the collection, recycling and management of packaging waste. It’s an important step in driving forwards a circular economy that both the government and the public want to see. I believe this is progress towards seeing real change and I look forward to seeing how this vital reform progresses in 2025.

The circular economy not only covers the waste and resources sector, but also sustainable production of food, materials and energy. It regenerates nature, builds resilience, reduces pollution, and returns nutrients to land. Thus, it generates more renewable resources to complete the loop (where needed and without contamination). We are supporting Defra on the circular economy input to the Environmental Improvement Plan for farming and nature, as well as waste.

Case study: using paper waste in masonry products

We assessed the use of paper waste as a constituent in the production of aggregate pellets, which could be used in masonry products such as concrete blocks.

The process involves grinding and drying the waste paper materials before adding to a mixer along with cement to form a homogeneous mix. This mix is pelletised and left to cure before being transferred to the customer for incorporation into masonry products, such as a concrete block or bricks.

Our DoW service reviewed and technically assessed the evidence provided in the submission, supported by our Chief Scientist’s Group and legal services. It concluded that end of waste status had been achieved for the aggregate pellet and therefore waste regulatory controls no longer apply for its subsequent use.

The successful submission and subsequent use of the material as a non-waste was associated with CO2 savings, cost savings for the applicant and the diversion of a significant amount of waste from landfill.

Theme 2 – Our regulatory team

As Chief Regulator, I am also the Environment Agency’s new Head of Profession for regulation. Developing regulation as a recognised profession in the Environment Agency will enable me to build a cohesive community of regulatory specialists. I want them to be supported in the vital, challenging and varied work they do. Having a capable, confident and supported workforce is essential if we are to meet the regulatory challenges of today and the future.

For example, we already collaborate with industry and academia to run internships, apprenticeships, and industry placements to attract new staff. We will develop further collaborations as the regulation profession matures. We are also investing in new accredited training which will strengthen foundation learning for our regulatory officers. I look forward to reporting on our progress in my next report.

Case study: waste industry placement scheme 

This is an annual collaboration between the Environment Agency and the Environmental Services Association (ESA) and their members, who operate recycling and waste treatment infrastructure in the UK. The scheme provides Environment Agency officers with hands-on operational experience, bolstering their ability to regulate with greater understanding, credibility and confidence by completing a one-week placement as an employee of the host company.

Pre-pandemic, the scheme had been in place for 19 years and received excellent feedback, with around 30 officers taking part each year. The scheme was reinstated in 2024 and participating companies included Suez, Veolia, Augean, Biffa, EMR, FCC, Grundon, Hills, Sherbourne Recycling and Encyclis.

The scheme is mutually beneficial. Through better understanding of each other’s needs and responsibilities, improved standards in operation and regulation enhance permit compliance and environmental protection to the benefit of all.

A total of 58 officers, who enrolled in the 2024 scheme, completed their placements, with positive feedback being received from both the secondees and host waste companies. John Mawer, a Regulatory Officer, was placed at a Veolia energy-from-waste plant in Sheffield. He said:

“I have recently started regulating Energy from Waste sites, completing baseline training before visiting Energy from Waste facilities. This placement has enabled me to cement the building blocks learnt in the classroom and understand how the operation works. I now have a greater understanding of the complexity of some of the challenges that an operator faces with regards to changes in our regulatory approach.”

Case study: radioactive substances regulation careers skills and training 

We routinely sponsor graduates on the Nuclear Graduate programme run by Energus. This is a 2-year long programme, with 3 placements across the nuclear industry and or government, starting with the first placement with the Environment Agency as their sponsor. We aim to recruit our sponsored graduates directly into the Environment Agency when they complete the programme. 

In 2023, we employed 2 people on a 5-year nuclear engineering degree apprenticeship. The apprentices are split between university studies and placements within our nuclear and radioactive substances (non-nuclear) regulation teams to gain on-the-job experience.

We run a 12-week Summer Development Internship Programme across the Environment Agency, including nuclear teams. The scheme is focused on encouraging students from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds to consider careers at the Environment Agency. This builds on our commitment to ensure social equity is delivered through our work.

Theme 3 – Regulating effectively

It is vital that those we regulate and all interested parties, especially the communities we work to protect, have confidence in us as a regulator. I know we don’t always get everything right. I want to ensure that we continually evaluate and improve our regulatory service and make our regulation work better for all.

I want to drive continuous improvement in our regulatory practices. To deliver for the environment, communities and businesses, we need to ensure we can demonstrate that our compliance processes are effective. Our advice-led approach must continue to be proportionate and risk-based. We also must adapt for the future, making changes to keep pace with technology, a changing environment and shifting public expectations.

Alongside compliance sits enforcement and sanctions. We must act against those who are clearly operating unlawfully or are persistently non-compliant to protect legitimate businesses and the environment. We need the most effective tools to do this and the resources to take the actions needed.

Customer service is an important part of our considerations. Efficient and timely services support businesses to grow and invest. We continue to look at where we can make improvements. We currently have specific programmes on permitting and digital transformation focusing on providing a more effective and efficient service.

One way in which we improve how we work is via learning from and collaborating with others, including business, communities, other regulators and international counterparts. Listening to multiple views is an integral part of building trust.

I want to share some specific examples of the work we have done over the past year. These demonstrate our proportionate risk-based and evidence-driven approach to our regulation and how we are developing and using new ways of working.

Effective compliance

Our compliance and enforcement activities are undertaken in accordance with our policies, with appropriate regard to the Regulators’ Code and Growth Duty. We will continue to be risk-based, evidence-driven and proportionate in our compliance and enforcement activities.

The Regulator’s Code requires regulators to provide an impartial and clearly explained route to appeal against a regulatory decision or a failure to act in accordance with the Code. We have recently reviewed our appeals process against that requirement and made some improvements.

Our key focus is on helping people to comply. We can support those we regulate by providing and improving clear and accessible guidance and providing expert advice during our compliance visits. This helps them to understand their responsibilities and how they can meet them.

Effective and efficient farm visits 

Additional funding from the Agricultural Regulatory Taskforce (ART) Programme has allowed us to increase the number of full-time agriculture inspection officers from 27 in 2020 to nearly 90.

Delivering around 4,000 targeted farm inspections a year, an increase of nearly 10-fold since 2001

Our visits have always been advice-led and targeted. We focus on high-risk locations, previously non-compliant businesses, and those farming sectors of greatest concern. We target our farm visits based on risk to the environment. Current priorities are protected sites, and the dairy and beef sector.

We use our data, technology and innovative approaches to make us more efficient and effective. Modern digital systems allow us to better gather and analyse our data. We can overlay environmental data in our mapping system, showing where we know pollution from farming is or can cause environmental damage. We use earth observation techniques to refine our targeting, identifying potentially non-compliant farms remotely. We continue to expand on this area of work.

We work with farmers by providing advice and guidance, reflecting individual circumstances, and taking a proportionate approach based on risk to the environment. If our advice is not heeded, or there is a breach of regulations or a pollution incident, we pursue whatever sanction is necessary. These include penalties, formal cautions or prosecutions.

During 2023 we issued 346 enforcement responses from our farm inspections, primarily warning letters and site warnings

Our regulatory approach is also mindful of other pressures on farm businesses and takes account of costs and scale of actions. If farmers follow our advice and guidance, we expect better compliance without our prompting. This will enable us to take a firmer line in cases where there is environmental harm or risk of harm.

I am really pleased that this increased resource has allowed us to show the valuable outcomes our regulatory approach for agriculture can deliver for the environment.

Case study: silage effluent

An initial inspection of a dairy farm in 2022 found 2 silage clamps that did not comply with agricultural regulations. The clamps had no perimeter drainage or effluent collection. The farmer had agreed to rectify these issues. Following a re-visit in 2023, the work had not been done sufficiently. This meant a risk of pollution – effluent draining to clean water drains and nutrients leaching into the surrounding groundwater.

We served a notice requiring perimeter drainage channels to be installed and the effluent collected. All work has now been completed, and the effluent is safely piped to a slurry store.

Water industry transformation 

The recent focus on water industry performance has highlighted the need for change. We launched The Water Industry Regulation Transformation Programme (WIRTP) in 2023. It sets out measures to transform the way we regulate the water industry to uncover non-compliance and drive better performance.

I welcome the opportunity to step up our regulation through the new Water (Special Measures) Bill. Additional powers will help us hold water companies and their bosses to account faster. I am pleased the Bill addresses both water quality and supply concerns, looking to create a more robust regulatory regime. For too long, industry culture has been focused on fixing failure, not on ensuring the long-term resilience of our water infrastructure.

Through government funding and fees and charges, we have already secured additional resources.

£55 million per year for increased water industry inspections and enforcement action, including recruiting up to 500 more staff

We are working closely with Defra and other partners to look at longer-term reforms for the water sector.

Cleaning up England’s waters is not just about water companies, it includes agriculture, industry, roads and urban pollution too. Taking a comprehensive approach to protecting the water environment provides valuable strategic oversight of the whole water system. The catchment approach does this by better integrating water, nature and flood planning. It targets action where it will deliver the greatest impact for water quality, flood management, and nature recovery.

I am pleased to say that with the additional funding secured, as well as the larger specialised workforce, we are enhancing our legal capacity and improving our digital and monitoring systems. We are investing around £15 million in enhancing our digital systems. This includes a new suite of analysis tools, which will allow our officers to dig deeper, direct their inspections to the highest priority sites and free up more time to regulate water companies. We are investing in our staff so they have the skills to regulate for a better water environment. Training in root-cause analysis has been introduced to identify the causes of non-compliance so issues can be addressed quicker. We are delivering a prioritised, intelligence-led programme of inspections informed by new innovative digital tools currently under development.

We have already used EDM evidence to drive £1.1 billion of water company investment

This will drive 800 investigations and nearly 800 improvements to storm overflows by 2025. Defra’s Storm overflows discharge reduction plan, published in 2022, sets clear targets that the water industry must meet to protect people and the environment.

The additional information on storm overflow discharges from the new monitoring and reporting requirements in the plan will improve our ability to enforce unlawful storm overflow discharges and permit breaches. Using data and evidence to regulate more effectively is important. EDM gives us much more information on where and when storm overflow discharges are occurring, which is enabling us to take quicker action to improve them.

Action on methane 

Alongside more traditional interventions or sector specific regulations, some of our work is more cross cutting. We have an important regulatory role in reducing methane emissions in England. Under EPR we require that methane, a priority pollutant and potent greenhouse gas, is captured and controlled for certain sectors we regulate. These include landfill sites and anaerobic digestors. Other major sources, such as the beef and dairy sector, do not have the same regulatory controls.

We must take a different approach if we want to efficiently and effectively deliver our responsibilities. For methane we have created a Methane Action Plan. It sets out how we will reduce methane emissions using our regulatory powers, including using new technologies to gather evidence. We are also sharing knowledge and good practice to reduce methane emissions in the UK and internationally.

Case study: Optical Gas Imaging 

In 2023, we acquired 2 additional Optical Gas Imaging cameras that produce images of otherwise undetectable gas emissions. They can identify releases of volatile organic compounds, including methane. These cameras help reduce fugitive emissions of pollutants and support businesses to avoid losses of fuels from tanks and pipelines. The cameras are used to identify issues and enable the operators of the permitted sites to carry out further investigations to secure improvements. Due to the way the cameras operate, they are not used for enforcement action or to quantify emissions from leaks. Instead, they complement our advice and guidance while significantly reducing emissions and supporting the Environment Agency’s Methane Action Plan.

When the cameras were recently used at a wastewater treatment works, we found diffuse biogas emissions from an anaerobic digestion storage tank. A significant proportion of this was methane. Following our visit, the water company proposed to enclose the storage tank and capture the gas, which could then be used as a fuel for an onsite combined heat and power plant. This reduced greenhouse gas emissions and eliminated a potential odour source.

Going beyond compliance

We are encouraging businesses to integrate good environmental practice into their normal ways of working and to go beyond compliance, using incentives and other market led approaches.

Case study: the SEEBEYOND project 

The SEEBEYOND project is a research project delivered jointly with the University of Cambridge. It is exploring how we can use behavioural science (insights) to motivate those in the food and drink industry to transition towards sustainability and go beyond basic environmental compliance.

The project has designed a set of standardised environmental metrics to report primary environmental performance data at a site and enterprise level. The metrics cover greenhouse gases and other air pollutants, waste, materials usage including package and plastics, as well as water quality and consumption.

The project is developing, testing and evaluating solutions with industry, government and NGOs. Future phases of the work will include developing data interoperability technologies to automate data exchange between food companies and external systems. Also, the use of machine learning to improve the framework and standardised environmental metrics.

Enforcement

We support operators to do the right thing, but we will take action to prevent or reduce environmental harm. To get the best outcome for the environment and for people, we use the full range of enforcement and sanctioning options available to us. We continue to look at the most effective options for getting the changes in behaviour we want and giving the correct sanctions.

In 2023, we brought 91 prosecution cases resulting in fines totalling £8.7 million

In 2023, we issued 85 civil penalties totalling over £1.9 million for breaches of the climate change schemes we administer.

Case study: waste criminals brought to justice

Six waste operators who repeatedly ignored our advice and warnings that their sites posed a persistent fire-risk were sentenced in May 2024. Waste storage and management failures at 2 sites led to major fires in 2020, polluting the environment and causing misery for local residents. Waste tyres were being stored illegally at a third site.

The punishment for multiple environmental offences at the 3 sites included prison sentences spanning 6.5 years and fines totalling more than £103,000.

Waste criminals cause distress to communities and can destroy the environment. This case demonstrates that we will ensure they are brought to justice for their crimes.

I want our enforcement action to be trusted, so the public and businesses understand why we take the actions we do and can see the benefits. Enforcement undertakings remain an effective enforcement option for less serious offending. Polluters and those who breach environmental requirements may restore the environment themselves or fund other environmental projects or improvements in the local area, taking steps to prevent the incidents reoccurring. Our use of enforcement undertakings has increased since they were introduced.

Over the past 5 years more than £16 million has been put towards environmental projects or improvements as a result of enforcement undertakings

Working with others

We would not be able to work as effectively or efficiently without partnership working. I think that our collaborative work is really important, and through it we can achieve multiple benefits for the environment and people.

We consult publicly and work with communities to ensure their needs are met. We also engage with industry, trade bodies, partnerships, networks, groups, other regulators, and government.

We network extensively with regulators worldwide on environmental regulation. We exchange best practice, intelligence, and gain insights into developments in legislation and regulatory approaches. This helps inform our domestic approach to regulation and supports a regulatory level playing field across Europe and beyond. It also supports trade on cross-border issues such as waste shipments and chemicals, tackling global environmental issues collectively.

Examples of working with other regulators

• We have a memorandum of understanding with the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR). Under this we carry out joint inspections across the nuclear sites we regulate. Our joined-up efforts mean we target our regulatory work on topics of mutual interest like asset management and radioactive waste management, minimising duplication between regulators.
• Working with HSE, ONR and strategic industry groups, reducing the risk of major accidents at high hazard sites. Our sustained and focused regulatory strategy has delivered a high level of protection and reduced the severity of incidents at these sites.
• Collaborating with HSE to produce the PFAS Regulatory Management Options Analysis (RMOA) as part of the government’s action plan to address concerns arising from PFAS. RMOA is used to inform the risk management of PFAS in the UK.
• Working with international regulators in the USA, France and Canada, we are building our capability and capacity related to fusion technologies.

Example of working with utility regulators

• The Regulators’ Alliance for Progressing Infrastructure Development (RAPID) – a partnership between Ofwat, the Environment Agency and the Drinking Water Inspectorate. RAPID helps facilitate the development and funding of new large-scale strategic water supply options by the water companies to build resilient water supplies for the future and help deliver water security for wider sustainable growth.

Examples of working with government departments and local authorities

• Working with local authorities to enable growth on issues such as spatial planning and contaminated land. 
• Economic Crime Unit (ECU) was launched in 2024 to tackle money laundering and carry out financial investigations in the waste sector, ensuring crime does not pay. Working closely with partners such as the police and HM Revenue and Customs.

Theme 4 – Transforming our regulation for the future

As Chief Regulator, my ambition is for the Environment Agency to be a proactive, forward-looking regulator that is prepared for the future and the changes it may bring. To support us in this we need:

• information and understanding
• new tools, skillsets and ways of working
• digitalisation
• regulatory reform

Information and understanding

We need to consider what the future may bring. Working with our Chief Scientist’s Group and regulatory staff, we use horizon scanning and futures tools to understand our possible future operating context and emerging risks and opportunities. This helps shape our thinking on the future of our regulatory service and enables us to be operationally resilient in the face of a range of possible futures. It informs how we better protect the environment, its resources and our communities, while enabling sustainable development and leveraging innovation.

Our staff need to have information about and understanding of new technologies and processes to regulate them effectively and understand environmental risks. We work closely with government, industry and academia to try and ensure we have this information. For example, we must ensure our regulation is fit to support technologies such as new decarbonisation technologies, advanced nuclear technologies and fusion for energy production.

Case study: green hydrogen

We are supporting businesses who wish to trial the use of hydrogen in their processes. We have worked with industry, other UK regulators and academia to develop regulatory guidance on:

• blue hydrogen
• green hydrogen

Guidance on emerging techniques is produced while BAT guidance is still being developed. This guidance will contribute to the regulatory certainty industry requires to enable ongoing investment decisions to be made.

The data we collect and use is vital to our regulatory role. We are committed to strengthening our evidence-based approach to environmental protection. We are doing this by transforming how we collect, combine and analyse data from multiple sources. Turning data into regulatory intelligence will deepen our understanding of complex environmental systems, identify risks more rapidly and develop effective mitigation strategies.

Our Regulatory Services Programme (RSP) is developing a new ‘Intelligence Hub’ across the Environment Agency. Our regulatory data was previously stored in isolated legacy systems. The Intelligence Hub uses a comprehensive suite of modern tools that will allow us to standardise our data, combine it more easily and use it across the organisation. I am delighted that we are already seeing benefits from this investment in the form of real-time reporting, ‘one version of the truth’, and user-friendly summaries that can quickly identify where we need to act. Our capability in this area will only increase as more data is brought into the Intelligence Hub. 

We have also developed a suite of digital tools to aid compliance work for water quality regulation.

Case study: Compliance Toolkit for Water Quality

The Compliance Toolkit for Water Quality helps to streamline data collection and reporting processes. The tools provide a more efficient, accurate way of processing data and improve our approach to intelligence led compliance work. One example is the EDM and dry day spills tool. It has an interactive dashboard and maps so data can be visualised in a user-friendly way, with capability for data filtering and downloading for further analysis of detailed data.

New tools, skillsets and ways of working

As well as supporting industry with their new technologies, we are developing tools and learning new skills ourselves that improve our effectiveness and make more efficient use of our time. They help to support our compliance activities, transform our regulatory approaches and improve our understanding on the impact of industrial activities on the environment.

Case study: remote regulation of agriculture 

In 2023, we continued our Defra-backed project TARA (Testing Approaches to Regulation of Agriculture), testing different and innovative ways to regulate farming. We will be making more use of digital tools at our disposal. Our officers are now using remote sensing data such as drone footage, satellite imagery and other mapping tools. They can more effectively pinpoint and target areas of environmental risk and harm and offer solutions during inspections. Intelligence gained on any breaches can also be sent directly to landowners, with information on what they need to do to rectify the situation. 

Remote sensing has allowed us to quickly identify the location of outdoor pig units then monitor remotely for land management issues.

Image 1: outdoor pig units

We have developed a tool to assess the capacity of slurry stores. We can cross reference this with cattle numbers to assess if there is the legal storage volume available on the farm.

Image 2: leaking slurry store

Case study: methane monitoring from space 

The Environment Agency’s work with GHGSat and the Satellite Applications Catapult, under the UK Space Agency-funded program secured under Agricultural Regulations and Compliance Using Earth Observation (ARC-EO) project, has demonstrated the transformative potential of satellite technology in addressing methane emissions. In collaboration with GHGSat, we are actively integrating satellite-based methane monitoring across multiple regulated sectors, including agriculture, waste management, sewerage infrastructure, landfill, anaerobic digestion, and oil and gas. Our efforts have so far identified over 100 sites across England, where targeted satellite tasking will be enabled for timely and precise methane detection using GHGSat.

The following outlines a recent methane emission detection from a landfill site in the Cheltenham area.

9 May 2024: Initial detection of methane emissions was detected by GHGSat sensor at the landfill site.

19 May 2024: At the request of the Environment Agency, a follow-up assessment by tasking satellite was conducted to verify the persistence of the emissions and to confirm their exact source. The source of the emissions was identified, and the findings were shared with local area teams.

Post-19 May 2024: The site operator was informed of the emission detections

2 June 2024: A subsequent satellite tasking showed no detectable methane emissions, confirming that the issue had been effectively resolved.

Methane emission data will be incorporated into our Incident Communication Service (ICS) for National Incident Management, supporting a cornerstone of the Environment Agency’s Methane Action Plan. Through these evidence-based insights, we are better positioned to engage operators, government departments and other regulatory bodies in setting methane standards and compliance mechanisms.

GHGSAT Data and Products – Copyright © 2023 GHGSAT Inc. All rights reserved

Case study: digital twin of an industrial cluster: a proof of concept on the Humber Estuary

Using a Regulator’s Pioneer Fund grant, in partnership with Hitachi Solutions, we developed a proof-of-concept (PoC) digital twin model of a low carbon industrial cluster in the Humber Estuary.

The PoC uses environmental and industrial data to assess the cumulative impacts of low carbon technologies, focusing on water availability and temperature. The industrial cluster can be designed to explore how the impacts change as industries are added. Resource requirements can be altered to find potential sustainable solutions. It includes climate change projections to explore the potential impacts to the end of the century. This helps regulators and industry understand and prepare for how water availability and higher water temperatures may affect the use of low carbon technologies.

Further collaboration with other regulatory bodies and industry would bring additional data and refinement. Digital twin technology has the potential to be a useful tool in future strategic policy and regulatory decision making.

The PoC digital twin recently won the digital award for ‘inspiration of the year’ at the Hitachi Group global awards 2024.

Digital twin of an industrial cluster: a proof of concept on the Humber Estuary

Digitalisation 

As I mentioned in theme 1 and throughout this report, digital transformation is an important area of our work. It is providing the foundations for many of our regulatory improvements including data, systems, ways of working and supporting the customer experience. 

During 2023-2024, we replaced our case management system for enforcement as part of our Regulatory Services digital transformation programme. The Nexus Enforcement platform supports delivery of our enforcement strategy, making us more efficient and consistent in our approach to managing enforcement work across all regulated regimes. Along with the rest of the Regulatory Services platforms, it draws together our data, enabling stronger intelligence-led regulation. Nexus Enforcement has been rolled out to almost 2000 internal users and recently won the User Experience Award at the Smarter Working Live Awards 2024.

Regulatory reform

We work closely with government and other regulators to ensure the legislation and regulatory frameworks we work within are fit for purpose now and in the future. Regulation must be based on a progressive framework that is flexible, coherent and proportionate. A framework that allows us to decide the level of intervention required as the risk and our understanding of the risk change.

Case study: waste and resources regulatory reform 

During 2023, we continued to work as a technical advisor to Defra in developing a suite of enforceable waste and resources reforms which are planned to be implemented over the coming years. They will make a seismic shift in how waste is managed, driving a more circular economy and contributing to achieving net zero. 

The Packaging Waste (Data Reporting) (England) Regulations 2023 came into force in February 2023. These changes improve accountability for waste streams and encourage producers to consider the sustainability of packaging they place on the market. We provided considerable technical resource advising Defra to ensure the legislation is enforceable and will achieve its policy outcomes.

Part 3 – Forward look and challenges

The UK is one of the most nature depleted countries in the world and water pollution, air quality, waste management and climate change are still challenges. At the same time, we need to support net zero ambition, the move to a more circular economy and sustainable economic growth. Much of our regulatory framework dates from the last century.

The Environment Agency alone cannot meet these challenges. I believe changes to legislation are also needed to make the regulatory framework simpler, more coherent, flexible and agile. The benefits of such a framework include:

• improved environmental protections for people and the environment through quicker responses and the ability to tighten or reduce regulatory oversight in response to new evidence and data
• better support for innovation and growth through greater flexibility to remove regulatory barriers, and through reducing complexity and improving the coherence of the legislation and guidance
• supporting value for money by simplifying and harmonising internal processes and improved cost recovery
• enabling a more consistent interpretation and application of regulations, including from our officers and customers, making us more effective
• improving consistency for operators in line with the Regulators’ Code and delivery of NAO principles of effective regulation recommendations

As well as updated legislation, I want to see the Environment Agency deliver a better experience for those we regulate. This will require sufficient funding and investment at both policy and implementation levels. Increased cost recovery for implementing regulations, will help fund better systems, improved customer information and advice, as well as allowing for more efficient and effective data-led decision making and a smoother customer experience.

More stable and consistent funding will enable continued support for our transformation to a digitally delivered regulatory service. We are already delivering smarter and intelligent end-to-end digital journeys for our some of our customers, modernising the way we regulate. We’re leveraging analytics and intelligence so that we can use advanced digital innovation to help protect the environment. Without continued investment and transformation, further improvements to the customer experience will be limited.

Regulation can only go so far. To work effectively it is vital that the planning system and permitting system work together effectively. We need to make sure regulated activities are built in the right places that both support local communities and growth, but also protect and enhance nature and public health. This sometimes means there are difficult decisions.

Early engagement would enable us to support finding solutions, provide advice on spatial planning, and line up permitting resources to prevent delays. For example, we need placemaking decisions to routinely embed thinking on future climate impacts and creating environmental capacity. This would ensure sustainable development that is future-ready. While we can do much to build resilience amongst those we regulate, often the greatest opportunities lie with those who make decisions on land use planning and future development.

From my perspective, early engagement and discussion with all concerned is key. Whatever the outcome of government reviews and legislative changes.

To do all this, the Environment Agency continues to strive to deliver a high quality, professional regulatory service that is fit for the future. As Chief Regulator, I am looking forward to playing my part and leading the development of the Environment Agency’s regulation.

Dr Jo Nettleton – Chief Regulator – Environment Agency