For several decades EU and UK environmental law and policy have shared much the same foundations and provisions, with the majority of environmental law agreed at a European level. Now, with the withdrawal of the UK from the EU, as each side goes its separate ways, there is the potential for environmental law and policy to diverge.

This is true not just of policy and law diverging between the UK and EU but also within the UK itself, between the four nations: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. IEEP UK is monitoring and analysing the implications and effect of the most significant forms of divergence for our environment.

As part of our work in monitoring divergence in environmental policy, IEEP UK has developed a ‘hub’, a forum for organisations to discuss and share developments on the topic of divergence; has developed a legislative tracker to identify key environmental developments across the UK and EU and produce briefings and reports, some of which can be seen below.

IEEP UK first launched its divergence series with our report “Divergence in environmental policy post Brexit: some initial reflections“, for more on our divergence publications, please see below.