This insight piece, written by IEEP UK’s Head of Environmental Policy Michael Nicholson, was first published by UK in a Changing Europe as part of its February 2026 report UK-EU alignment and divergence: the road ahead.

Leaving the European Union provided the opportunity for the UK to move away or ‘diverge’ from environmental rules largely set by the EU. For some, this opened the door to a ‘Singapore-on-Thames’ style business environment with much less red (or green) tape. Michael Gove, on the other hand, argued that there would be a ‘Green Brexit’. For better or worse, however, large-scale regulatory change driven by the UK in the area of environment and climate policy has not materialised.

Rather, it is the EU that has taken the common rulebook the two sides shared up to 2020 and built on it. It has amended and revised it by tightening and strengthening existing environmental laws and created tougher new ones too. Though there are nuances to the picture, in short, the UK has chosen, in large part, not to keep pace with the EU.

It was of course coincidental that Brexit coincided with the European Green Deal (EGD), the flagship policy that drove Commission President von der Leyen’s first term in office. The EGD has been extraordinary in its breadth and depth, and few other five-year Commission mandates have seen as many environment and climate measures passed in a single term. A current ‘simplification’ drive may reflect dampened enthusiasm for more ambitious change, but the EGD is the backdrop against which EU-led divergence is framed.

There are few areas where the EU has not strengthened its environment and climate laws, many of which open a comparative gap in the level of standards and regulatory protection. This is most evident in the EU’s willingness to restrict the use of harmful chemicals and pesticides. Efforts to promote and build a ‘circular economy’, tighten air quality standards, tackle microplastics and more effectively deal with sewage are notable too.

It cannot be said that the UK has not used its post-Brexit ‘freedoms’ to diverge away from EU policy and raise environmental standards – an innovative biodiversity net gain policy (in England), protecting ‘soundscapes’ (in Wales), banning single use vapes and protecting sand eels in some UK waters are all good examples – but they are relatively few in number and are outweighed, so far at least, by the EU’s desire to go further and faster.

The recent UK-EU ‘reset’ embarked upon by Prime Minster Starmer’s government includes negotiations around a sanitary and phytosanitary standards (SPS) deal, the linkage of emission trading systems (ETS), and participation in the EU internal electricity market, all of which have clear implications for environment and climate policy, particularly in the case of stronger pesticide restrictions as part of an SPS deal.

Yet it should be recognised that the ‘reset’ negotiations have been designed to reduce barriers to trade and grow the economy, not to tighten or strengthen environment or climate policy per se. ETS linkage is designed to avoid charges that UK exporters are exposed to under the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism. A deal around aligning food safety and SPS standards would mean fewer checks and delays at borders for the criss-crossing of products being sold between the EU and UK. And cooperation on electricity would likely lower costs for industries and economies on both sides of the channel. Similarly, the rationale for the recent Product Regulation and Metrology Act, which also grants powers to raise the environmental standards of products being used or sold in the UK, is designed principally to smooth cross-border trade.

Indeed, no overarching strategy has been published by the UK government setting out the pros and cons of either alignment with or divergence from EU environmental laws. In Scotland, clearer statements have been made regarding the Scottish government’s wish to align with EU rules, but this stance is arguably based on political considerations and the desire to keep the door open for potential Scottish accession, rather on a specific desire to raise environmental standards.

Take for instance changes to the EU’s urban wastewater treatment directive. The EU has tightened the requirements on member states when it comes to dealing with sewage, i.e. wastewater. It also requires member states to recover costs from pharmaceutical and cosmetics companies whose products contain micropollutants damaging to human health and the environment. The UK’s nations have a choice: do they follow suit or not? There is no obvious trade benefit to aligning with EU rules in this area and so any changes would likely be made as a result of domestic pressure over the poor state of the UK’s waterways, rather than out of a desire to align with EU rules. The same is true for a number of initiatives where the EU has raised its standards or increased its level of ambition since Brexit; such as new laws aimed at improving energy efficiency, reducing methane emissions, reducing microplastic pollution and cutting food and textile waste.

There are, however, several areas of environmental policy that have implications for trade, where aligning with the EU could help to reduce frictions or distortions to economic competition. For example, differing timelines and rival approaches to preventing the import of products linked to deforestation adds uncertainty and complexity for companies in Europe operating across jurisdictions. Similar cases could be made for other environment-related policy areas, such as ‘eco-design’ standards for products and chemical standards.

Whilst there has been no seeming desire in the UK to slash ‘green tape’ to gain a competitive advantage over its EU neighbours, neither has there been an objective
of alignment to match or exceed environmental standards set by its more ambitious neighbour(s). Where there has been a desire to align, it has principally been done with the purpose of reducing barriers to trade and promoting economic growth.

Though it may seem unlikely now, neglecting provisions in the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, which require parties not to diverge in a manner that ‘materially’ affects trade and investment and which includes one party raising standards without the other following suit – the so-called ‘re-balancing’ clause (Article 411) – would seem to be particularly pertinent. This could allow the EU to take trade retaliation in response to UK regulatory passivity.

It is a salutary lesson to UK audiences who wish to see higher environmental standards, and who see higher levels of ambition being set by the EU for the benefit of their citizens. Aligning for alignment’s sake or simply so that the UK can benefit from higher environmental standards is unlikely to be persuasive enough to merit the government’s attention.

Photo by Jens Lelie on Unsplash