Besides 2026 being the 50th anniversary year for the IEEP family, this year is set to be a busy one for us with myriad opportunities to improve the UK’s environmental policy landscape. IEEP UK’s Executive Director Ben Reynolds outlines six (and yes there are many more) that are at the top of our list.
Increased coverage over the last week of the UK Government’s legislative plans to further cement ties with the EU will not come as a surprise to those tracking the follow up to the May 2025 Reset. It will take more than a few photo opps to put in place the much-heralded linkages of energy markets, emissions trading schemes, and veterinary agreements to remove trade barriers for agri-food products. Without wanting to detract from the impact (for the environment) of securing these, the new year provides a good moment to consider whether closer ties may come with more strings or make a stronger safety net.
1. Circular Economy
In the last five years, the EU has developed a raft of new legislation including on ecodesign, buildings, critical raw materials and batteries. The circular economy is one of the few environmental issues where the EU is looking to pass new legislation in 2026, aiming to set a target to double the EU’s circularity rate by 2030. Our joint research Aldersgate Group shows that UK businesses are calling for the UK to align with many of these laws to remove trade barriers.
The Government’s forthcoming (English) Circular Economy Growth Plan, due in the next two months, is an opportunity to raise levels of ambition to at least the level of the EU – if not to go beyond. In Scotland, where they aim – with mixed success – to align with EU policy, the consultation on their new Circular Economy Strategy closes in the next week.
2. Chemicals
Since Brexit the EU has been more active in restricting chemicals that are harmful to human health and the environment than the UK, partly due to a lack of capacity in our regulatory bodies. Aligning with the EU’s regulatory system (REACH) would reduce costs for UK taxpayers and businesses.
The good news is that the Government’s Environmental Improvement Plan released in December 2025 has shown that the UK is looking to move in this direction, but more scrutiny is needed on how it intends to do so, and what kind of relationship it will need with EU REACH in order to align with their chemical standards. Is the Product Regulation and Metrology Act (passed in summer 2025) a way to enable this, and will cooperation on this issue need to be part of future Reset discussions?
3. Air Quality
To date, Air Quality is one of only a handful of issues where UK standards have regressed since Brexit. Recent EU legislation sets stronger limits for harmful pollutants which cause chronic cardiovascular and respiratory disease whilst also contributing to climate change.
The Government will start work on a new Air Quality Strategy later this year, which is due to be published in 2027. This could build on recent commitments in the Environmental Improvement Plan to align with some limited EU standards on particulate matter. As outlined in our recent report, alignment with other EU air quality standards would be a stepping stone towards alignment with stronger WHO recommendations. As a devolved matter, the Welsh Government is currently consulting on revised particulate matter standards which raises the question of whether we might see a race to the top amongst UK nations and administrations regarding commitments on air quality standards.
4. Water and Wastewater
The EU has updated its main water and sewage laws and is requiring pharmaceutical and cosmetics companies to pay some of the cost of cleaning up damage caused by micropollutants to water bodies through an extended producer responsibility scheme. Dealing with pollution before it enters the water is much cheaper for the taxpayer and better for the environment too.
The UK Government is planning a new Water Bill, due to be tabled this month, in response to the Cunliffe Review it commissioned. This should build in recommendations from that review to include extended producer responsibility schemes in the UK similar to those in the EU to help pay for the damage caused to our watercourses and consider whether other sectors should be included. This would go a long way to more fully implementing the polluter pays principle.
5. Supply chains from farm to fork
The Oxford farming conferences that take place every January are usually accompanied by Government policy announcements on food and farming. They have a long list of promises in the pipeline to choose from. Following last year’s consultation, the publication of the (English) Land Use Framework is now long overdue as is any sight of the promised 25-year roadmap for farming. Whilst any commitments and clarifications around future farm spending, including the Sustainable Farming Incentive in England, will likely get more spotlight, further up the supply chain many are waiting to see what will happen next with the Government’s (English) Food Strategy, following its release in July 2025, and commitments to follow up with action. At IEEP UK we have made the case that a Food Bill, as recommended in Henry Dimbleby’s landmark report to Government, is the step change needed to incentivise businesses and others to create a more resilient, healthy and sustainable food system. Whilst there has been little appetite to date from Government for a bespoke Food Bill, they are committing to legislation to enable the veterinary or SPS (Sanitary and Phytosanitary) agreement which will see alignment with EU agri-food standards, which will likely affect rules on pesticides, animal welfare, labelling, genetic technology, use of peat in horticulture, and a whole lot more. Might this provide an opportunity to add in a more holistic set of measures on the food system?
Looking beyond UK and European supply relations, the UK’s 2021 Environment Act committed to the production of secondary legislation to tackle illegal deforestation in UK supply chains (Forest Risk Commodity regulations) which almost five years on has still not been tabled, meaning the UK lags behind the EU’s equivalent Deforestation Regulation (EUDR). This delay may provide an opportunity to go beyond the existing plans and look into the merits of alignment with the EU law, and allow for more clarity on EU standards as they develop.
6. Ratchet up the Reset and rejoin the EEA
Beyond the discussions around aligning standards and regulations, IEEP UK has been making the case for the UK rejoining the European Environment Agency, a pan-European body, and its sister Eionet network, to improve the quality and consistency of the UK’s environmental data and collaborative working on solutions to the cross-continental environmental challenges we face. These bodies include other non-EU members. As our new briefing, released next week, will argue, membership of this – for a small price – will help make the most of the UK’s investments in Horizon and Copernicus by creating the vital link between the environmental data these generate and UK policy and decision making.
The benefits in strengthening UK environmental standards that stem from the current agreements in scope would seem to largely outweigh the downsides. However, our ongoing work tracking UK-EU environmental policy divergence has flagged some risks alongside the merits of any broad-brush alignment with EU standards. While many EU environmental standards are higher than those in the UK, the EU’s advances of the last five years are already being eroded through their current simplification and deregulatory agenda, which may go further still. With many aspects of environmental policy now being devolved matters, an interesting aspect of these developments in 2026 will be how UK Government discussions with the EU might impede or enable devolved ambitions.
Please do get in touch if there are other policy developments on the horizon you think IEEP UK should be looking at.
Photo by Illiya Vjestica on Unsplash