Document Overview
This is EA2025: Creating a Better Place, an action plan published by the Environment Agency (GOV.UK). It is signed by Chair Emma Howard Boyd and Chief Executive Sir James Bevan. The plan sets priorities to 2025 and states that it will "act as our compass", with the 25 Year Environment Plan and the forthcoming Environment Bill as its maps.
Three Long-Term Goals
The plan sets out three long-term goals:
- A nation resilient to climate change
- Healthy air, land and water
- Green growth and a sustainable future The Agency says these goals will drive its work "today, tomorrow and to 2025", and that achieving them will require working and thinking differently.
Climate Resilience Priorities
The plan states that climate change will bring higher rainfall in shorter periods, faster coastal change, longer droughts and more frequent heatwaves. It cites climate disasters already costing the global economy an estimated $520 billion a year, and winter 2019/20 flooding losses of around £333 million. A 2020/21 target is 300,000 homes better protected by March 2021. The first three aims cover climate-resilient places, leadership on adaptation, and readiness for bigger, more frequent incidents.
Healthy Air, Land and Water
The document reports that UK soils lock up around 10 billion tonnes of carbon, roughly equal to 80 years of current annual greenhouse gas emissions. It cites a large review of studies finding a statistically significant link between time in green places and reductions in heart disease, type 2 diabetes and overall mortality. Measures include enhancing 8,000km of the water environment cumulatively from 2016 by the end of 2020/21, and creating or restoring 1,200 hectares of habitat.
Green Growth and Sustainable Future
The plan forecasts that household numbers will rise by 23% in 25 years and that England is committed to building up to 300,000 new homes a year. It states that organised waste crime costs the UK economy more than £600 million every year. The Agency commits to net zero carbon in its operations and supply chains by 2030, with a 2020/21 target of 28,720 tonnes, and to reducing high-risk illegal waste sites to a ceiling of 216.
Measuring Progress and Culture
The plan lists metrics for each aim, such as 97% of planning decisions taken in line with Agency advice and a minimum of 90% of adaptation actions delivered on track. Enabling targets include 14% of the workforce from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, 50% female executive managers, and a lost time incident frequency rate of 0.11 per 100,000 hours or better. Its three working principles are "put people and wildlife first", "80/20" and "support local priorities".
Purpose and Audience of the EA2025 Plan
The plan describes itself as a guide to a "healthier, greener and more prosperous" future for people, wildlife and the environment. It states that the Agency works with Defra, wider government, businesses, local councils, charities, civil society groups, local communities and international bodies, and it is addressed to those partners as well as to the Agency's own people.