IEMA responds to Environmental Principles
Today the government has published its response to a public consultation that was held last year on developing an environmental principles statement to help guide policymaking across Whitehall departments.
IEMA’s CEO Sarah Mukherjee MBE responds:
‘’Defra’s draft policy statement has the potential to put environmental considerations and objectives at the heart of policymaking across the breadth of Whitehall but in its current form it will fall short.
The statement requires more emphasis on joining the dots between the new elements of environmental governance stemming from the Environment Act.
Specifically a greater focus on how the statement can help drive progress across government on forthcoming long-term targets in the areas of air and water quality biodiversity and waste is clearly needed.”