Proposed Update to GB Deforestation Regime

This week, Defra published a consultation seeking views on due diligence regulations for businesses that use commodities associated with global deforestation in their commercial activity. The proposals have two main aims:

To update the existing GB timber regime (comprised of the Assimilated Regulation (EU) 995/2010 and the Timber and Timber Products (Placing on the Market) Regulations 2013); and
To introduce regulations on forest risk commodities. The framework for this under Schedule 17 Environment Act 2021has existed for several years but the secondary legislation required to bring it into operation have, so far, not been made.

Scope of the Proposals

The proposals apply to Great Britain (“GB”) only because the EU Deforestation Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2023/1115) (“EUDR”) (developed after Brexit) will apply in Northern Ireland from 30 December 2026.

What is Being Proposed?

We have outlined some of the defining features of the consultation proposals (all of which remain subject to consultation, impact assessment, and the Parliamentary process) that we expect will be of interest to a wide range of businesses:

The commodities in scope would be timber, plus six ‘forest risk commodities’ (cattle, cocoa, coffee, oil palm, rubber, and soy).
In-scope products would be identified by Harmonised System codes, with a targeted list broadly comparable to Annex I of the EUDR. The proposals envisage growing the existing list of timber products in scope (e.g., to include wood charcoal, wooden tableware and kitchenware, tools, ornaments, pulp and paper, and wooden seats and furniture). Similarly to the EUDR, an exclusion for wood packaging used solely to support, protect or carry another product, is being consideration.
Regulated businesses (see turnover threshold below) would be prohibited from using forest risk commodities, or products derived from them, unless they were produced in compliance with relevant local laws.
The new obligations would apply to businesses with global annual turnover above £1 million in the previous financial year (i.e., not only turnover generated in GB). It appears there would be no exemption based on the volume of commodity used.
The consultation makes clear that the proposals would cover online and distance sales, both business-to-business and business-to-consumer.
In-scope products would have to be fully traceable to the plot or harvest site where they were produced. Geolocation data would be required in a format compatible with the EUDR.
Where a business identified a risk of non-compliance with local laws through its due diligence, it would have to mitigate that risk to a “negligible” level before using the commodity or product in commercial activities.
Forest risk commodity businesses would report annually on their due diligence. Reports would follow the UK financial year and be due within six months of its end, which is typical timeframe used in other regimes such as modern slavery statements and carbon reduction plans. Reports would be submitted through a digital government system. Defra is consulting on whether to extend annual reporting to timber.
In terms of enforcement, new civil sanctions are proposed for timber, including compliance, restoration and stop notices, fixed and variable monetary penalties, and enforcement undertakings. The existing offences from the existing timber regime would remain in place. One of the points consulted on is whether the maximum variable monetary penalty should be unlimited, a fixed amount, or a percentage of turnover. The enforcement framework that exists already under the Schedule 17, which includes powers of entry and seizure, would be put into operation for forest risk commodities.

How Does this Fit in with the EUDR?

It should be noted that while there are deliberate similarities with the EUDR (e.g., the commodities, how products are identified, traceability and geolocalisation), there are also notable differences, in particular:

The £1m global annual turnover is a different test to how in-scope organisations are determined under EUDR.
The proposals for GB do not propose a ban on goods that are deforestation free.
Government does not appear to be consulting on whether operators should submit a due diligence statement prior to placing goods on the market.

New Steps

Government envisages that the proposed framework will bring clarity on the products in scope, enable stronger evidence on origin, traceability, and legality of commodities, and introduce requirements that are proportionate (in particular, simplified obligations for downstream businesses), better public accountability, and more effective enforcement. To give your view, respond to the consultation by 23:59 on 17 January 2027. Once it has closed, government will summarise responses received and publish them (on a no names basis).

Should you wish to discuss these proposals, please get in touch with our experienced EU and UK Environmental, Safety and Health team.

EPA Repeals Biden-era 2024 Power Plant Greenhouse Gas Standards, Prompting Immediate Legal Challenge

By Phil Sandick, Michael Cox and Jordyn Dawson on November 11, 2026 Posted in Air Quality, Climate Change & Sustainability, Energy & Utilities, Industrial Emissions

Administrator Zeldin’s Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) continues to reshape federal climate regulation for the power sector. See our past article, EPA Initiates Greenhouse Gas Emissions Rollback – A New Battle Begins, regarding EPA’s deregulation of fossil fuel-fired power plants in 2025. On September 14, 2026, EPA finalized a rule repealing most of the Biden Administration’s 2024 greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions standards for fossil fuel-fired power plants and simultaneously proposed eliminating the remaining federal GHG standards applicable to the sector (the “Repeal Rule”). Less than three weeks later, a coalition of 21 states, the District of Columbia, and several local governments filed suit in the D.C. Circuit challenging the rollback.

Utilities, independent power producers, merchant generators, fuel suppliers, and energy-intensive industrial facilities may or may not welcome the Repeal Rule. Over the course of the last several administrations, EPA’s on-again, off-again regulation of GHG emissions has caused “policy whiplash” for fossil fuel-fired power plants, disrupting long-term planning. The litigation that generally follows these rulemakings adds to the uncertainty.

Mandatory Supply Chain Human Rights Due Diligence in the UK

By Begonia Filgueira, Hannah Laming and Cristina Vela Gonzalez on November 10, 2026 Posted in Supply Chain

The UK Government has taken a significant step towards mandatory supply chain human rights due diligence.

On 4 November 2026, the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, the Rt Hon Jonathan Reynolds MP, announced that the UK will introduce mandatory human rights due diligence requirements for certain businesses. This marks one of the most substantial developments in responsible business regulation since the introduction of the Modern Slavery Act 2015.

However, this is not the only legislative proposal currently under consideration. A number of overlapping initiatives are progressing through Parliament, creating an increasingly complex compliance landscape for businesses operating in the UK.

While key details remain to be clarified, the direction of travel is unmistakable. Companies should now be reviewing and, where necessary, strengthening their human rights due diligence processes, supply chain risk assessments, governance frameworks, policies and public disclosures.

CERCLA Five-Year Reviews and Reopeners After the PFOA/PFOS Designation: How It Is Happening and What the Reviews Have Found

By Alex Arensberg, Phil Sandick, Michael Cox and Vivien Beadle on November 10, 2026 Posted in CERCLA/RCRA, Chemicals & Products, Property Acquisition, Site Remediation & Brownfields Redevelopment, Rulemaking & Policy Development

On August 18, 2026, a unanimous D.C. Circuit panel denied every petition challenging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) rule designating perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) as hazardous substances under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) § 102(a). In doing so, the court held that uncertainty about future cleanup costs did not make the rule arbitrary and capricious, because, as explained in EPA’s Designation itself, “CERCLA response actions are discretionary, contingent, and site-specific determinations.”

This post analyzes how those site-specific determinations have been made and are likely to be made when closed sites are reviewed for potential contamination by PFOA/PFOS. The mechanism is the Five-Year Review (FYR), which is required wherever a site remedy leaves contamination in place above levels that allow unrestricted use. In the FYR process, PFOA/PFOS contamination may be assessed, at which point EPA may determine that further response action is needed to ensure the remedy selected for the site remains protective of public health and the environment—including with respect to any known or suspected PFOA/PFOS contamination. At settled sites, that determination can lead EPA to invoke a consent decree “reopener.”

EPA Finalizes Colorado’s Class VI Primacy: What Changes on November 12 and What CCS Developers Should Watch

By Ghislaine Bruner, Phil Sandick and Michael Cox on November 9, 2026 Posted in Climate Change & Sustainability, Rulemaking & Policy Development

In our August 6 post, we explained how EPA’s proposed grant of Class VI underground injection control (UIC) primacy to Colorado, together with the Colorado–Wyoming Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), could bring faster and more coordinated permitting to carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects in the Rocky Mountain West. That proposal is now final.

On October 13, 2026, EPA published a final rule (91 Fed. Reg. 64780) approving Colorado’s Class VI program. The rule takes effect on November 12, 2026. On that date, the Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission (ECMC) will become the permitting and enforcement authority for Class VI wells in Colorado, except on Indian lands. Colorado becomes the seventh Class VI primacy state, and the Colorado–Wyoming MOU now links two neighboring states that both administer their own Class VI programs.

Draft Regulations Set to Amend GB Persistent Organic Pollutants Regulation

By Francesca Puttock on October 16, 2026 Posted in Brexit, Chemicals & Products, Environmental, Environmental Due Diligence, Environmental Protection

The draft Persistent Organic Pollutants (Amendment) Regulations 2026 (“Draft Regulations“) have this week been laid before Parliament and are set to come into force on 16 December 2026. They will amend the post-Brexit, assimilated version of the Persistent Organic Pollutants Regulation (EU 2019/1021) as it applies in Great Britain (“GB POPs Regulation“). In Northern Ireland, the EU POPs Regulation continues to apply.

The Draft Regulations will amend Annex I of the GB POPs Regulation to prohibit the manufacturing, placing on the market, and use of five POPs:

UV-328 (commonly used as an ultraviolet absorber for plastics)
Dechlorane Plus (DP) (a flame retardant)
Chlorpyrifos (an insecticide used on fodder crops and grassland)
Medium-chain chlorinated paraffins (MCCPs)
Long-chain perfluorocarboxylic acids (LC-PFCAs)

On account of their properties, these substances are used in a range of applications and across many industries, so consideration of (i) the exemptions to the bans and (ii) the ‘unintentional trade contaminants’ (“UTC“) limits will be particularly important for businesses evaluating the impact of the bans.

The Draft Regulations also amend the UTC limits for PFOS, which was already designated as a POP, and that of the PBDEs (tetra-, penta-, hexa-, hepta- and deca-BDE) when present in mixtures and articles.

We have (somewhat) been here before. In 2025, regulations amending the GB POPs Regulation to prohibit manufacturing, placing on the market, and use of DP and UV-328 were introduced (by a first and second set of regulations) and subsequently omitted within weeks following concerns voiced primarily by medical industry stakeholders.

‘POP’ is the designation given to substances that are persistent, toxic, bio-accumulative, and subject to long-range environmental transport. These changes at local level are being made on account of the UK’s commitments as a member of the Stockholm Convention.

Our Environmental, Safety, and Health team advises clients on both the GB and EU POPs Regulations and has recently reported on the outcome of the Government consultation on POPs in our latest edition of frESH Law Horizons, available here.

Modernising corporate reporting: The shift from ESG reporting to sustainability-related financial disclosure

By Begonia Filgueira and Benjamin Morgan on October 2, 2026 Posted in Climate Change & Sustainability

On 7 September 2026, the government launched its consultation on modernising corporate reporting. The consultation runs until 30 November 2026, and proposes wide-ranging changes to the UK’s corporate reporting framework, including the provisions that currently underpin non-financial reporting, or what has become known as environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting.

This briefing focuses on the sustainability-related reporting proposals within the consultation and taken as a whole, the consultation points towards a reporting framework that places greater emphasis on investor decision-useful information and financially material sustainability risks and opportunities. This is consistent with the publication of the UK’s Sustainability Reporting Standards (SRS), UK SRS S1: General Requirements for Disclosure of Sustainability related Financial Information and UK SRS S2: Climate-related Disclosures, which were endorsed and published by the government on 25 February 2026, and are currently available for voluntary use. While the consultation does not propose mandatory reporting against UK SRS, it may signal a future pathway towards broader adoption of UK SRS-based reporting within the UK’s corporate reporting framework.

Extended Producer Responsibility Beyond Waste: AG Kokott’s Opinion proposing partial annulment of the Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive a Watershed?

By Manon Ombredane and Peter Sellar on September 11, 2026 Posted in Environmental, Water Quality

Few concepts have shaped EU environmental law as profoundly as the polluter pays principle.

Despite its apparent simplicity, its implementation continues to raise a number of questions, such as who qualifies as the “polluter” and which mechanisms, from taxes to extended producer responsibility (EPR) schemes, should be used to transfer the costs of environmental protection to those deemed responsible for the resulting impacts.

These questions are becoming increasingly relevant as the European Union relies on and is expected to further expand the use of extended producer responsibility schemes beyond their traditional role in waste management.

AI Data Centres in the UK: Environmental Permitting and Consenting Risks

By Caroline Almond and Will Swarbrick on August 12, 2026 Posted in Environmental

Our firm has published an article on the environmental consenting landscape for artificial intelligence data centres in the UK, a sector that is developing quickly and being actively encouraged by the UK Government. The article looks at how the consenting position is shaped by the infrastructure needed to operate these facilities, particularly power, cooling, water and grid connections. It also considers why early design decisions can have a significant effect on permitting requirements, planning strategy and future challenge risk.

Read the full update here.

Waste carriers, brokers and dealers reform: What to expect

By Begonia Filgueira and Cristina Vela Gonzalez on August 6, 2026 Posted in Environmental, Solid & Hazardous Waste

If you are a waste carrier, broker or dealer in England, your registration will no longer be valid from 22 July 2027. You will instead need to take out an environmental permit and be subject to identity checks and criminal record checks, prove your technical competence to transport and make decisions about waste, as well as be required to display a permit number on your vehicles and advertising. The Chartered Institute of Wastes Management (CIWM) is currently working with the Environment Agency to support the delivery of the new Controllers and Transporters Competence Scheme, which will require learning, assessments and digital certification to prove technical competence before a permit is granted.

Waste activities are under greater scrutiny, and it is worth noting that a new penalty is also being introduced for waste transporting and controlling offences of up to five years’ imprisonment. The current Burnham government has also appointed a minister that will deal with waste crime and the circular economy, which only emphasises the focus on waste enforcement.