Threads / Environmental Permitting Reforms / Applying Environment Act 2021 civil sanctions
Consultation Outcome Published 10 Oct 2025 Environment Agency ↗ View on GOV.UK

Applying Environment Act 2021 civil sanctions

We want your views on a proposed update to the Environment Agency's enforcement and sanctions policy.

Opened 8 Jan 2025
Closed 5 Mar 2025
▤ Verbatim text from source document

This consultation focuses on the changes we need to make to our enforcement and sanctions policy for new civil sanction powers available to us after their introduction through the Environment Act 2021.

We want to add a new annex (Annex 4) to our enforcement and sanctions policy to explain our approach to using these powers. In particular, for the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging and Packaging Waste) Regulations 2024, which came into force on 1 January 2025.

We are not consulting on the principles of the main enforcement and sanctions policy, nor its Annex 1, Annex 2 or Annex 3.

We will consider your feedback and use this to refine our proposals.