Current environmental legislation

Find legislation that has come into force in the past twelve months in your region of the UK.

New English environmental legislation
New Northern Ireland environmental legislation
New Scottish environmental legislation
New Welsh environmental legislation

Or see the full legislation lists of key environmental regulations for businesses in your region of the UK, broken down by environmental subject area: air, water, waste etc.

English environmental legislation by subject area
Northern Ireland environmental legislation by subject area
Scottish environmental legislation by subject area
Welsh environmental legislation by subject area

Using our environmental legislation lists

We only list legislation that affects the environment. We do not cover regulations on health and safety, planning or taxation.

  • To get a complete picture of legislation on a particular subject you will probably have to look at both:
    • Acts or Orders (primary legislation) to understand the major principles, and
    • Regulations (secondary legislation) to find out about details and updates.
  • In most cases we link to the original legislation on the Office for Public Sector Information (OPSI) website, which will not include any subsequent changes. However, OPSI is developing versions of legislation that include these changes. We are linking to these versions as they become available.
  • Some legislation is usefully summarised in ‘Explanatory Notes’. You can usually find these at the end of the OPSI documents.

To find out about new legislation that is coming up please see our guidance on future environmental legislation.