IEEP UK authors: Michael Nicholson, Edward Worsdell, Holly Tomlinson and Christopher Crompton

As part of its statutory functions under the Continuity Act, Environmental Standards Scotland (ESS) may keep under review developments in international environmental protection legislation. In line with this, ESS’s 2022-2025 Strategic Plan stated that it would consider the extent to which the Scottish Government’s commitment to maintain or exceed alignment with EU environmental standards is being delivered.

As part of its work monitoring these developments, ESS commissioned IEEP UK to produce a report to:

1. Consider relevant evidence and information sources to identify where non-EU countries exceed environmental standards in Scotland;

2. Provide evidence as to the extent to which there is alignment between environmental standards, laws and regulations in Scotland with those in the EU; and

3. Provide ESS with recommendations on how it might conduct stocktakes and reviews of best practice in environmental regulation internationally (including the EU) in future.

Alongside data from an IEEP UK ‘divergence list’ of new environmentally-relevant EU legislation since Brexit, this paper also contains six case studies of identified divergences, providing further information on their potential impacts in Scotland.

The report finds that at least 55 EU directives and regulations (secondary legislation) and 569 EU implementing laws (tertiary legislation) have changed since 1 January 2021. It also provides recommendations for ESS on how to best carry out this monitoring work in future, including the importance of judging which aspects of legal divergence are in fact consequential for Scotland’s environment. Additionally, it find that there are limits to what the analysis of legal divergence and alignment between Scotland and the EU can achieve, and that the quality of strength of indigenous institutions, the robustness of governance, the availability and accessibility of data and information, and regular monitoring are also key factors in meeting environmental standards.

The full report was first published on the ESS website, and can be downloaded below.

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