Environmental lawyer says ‘The Government needs to identify further policy and legal drivers which will support delivery of these important targets through private nature markets.

The UK could miss its 2030 target to restore and safeguard nature by a “country mile” at the current rate of progress, green groups have warned.

The Government committed to protecting at least 30% of land and sea for nature by the end of the decade as part of the global biodiversity agreement made at the UN Cop15 Summit in 2015.

This means the UK must restore the environment across a network of well-managed, legally protected areas to help tackle the dual climate and nature crises.

Penny Simpson, partner in the environmental law team at leading law firm Freeths, said:

“This story shows how current laws and policies are not delivering the targets that the UK has committed to at an international level. New Secretary of State for Environment Food and Rural Affairs Emma Reynolds needs to sit up and notice.  The same is true for the domestic targets implemented through the Environmental Improvement Plan under the Environment Act 2021. 

“The Government needs to identify further policy and legal drivers which will support delivery of these important targets through private nature markets.  This needs to go much further than the current approach where compliance drivers are focussed on delivery of nature restoration through the planning regulatory system. 

“There is a role for this of course and one that should not be undermined. But we need to look beyond the planning regime at other sectors and assess how we can incentivise delivery of restoration through private nature markets. 

“The Government’s Call for Evidence  Expanding the role of the private sector in nature recovery: call for evidence - GOV.UK  has floated the idea of a regulatory requirement on certain sectors such as the food and drink industry or other processors and retailers to invest in nature and carbon reductions and removals in their own supply chains as part of their organisational strategies.  

“There is also the option of mandatory corporate environmental / biodiversity reporting which may then indirectly incentivise investment in nature restoration.  These are the issues that we hope the new Secretary of State will consider.”