Last week, the first of a series of lectures for Chartered Environmentalists was organised by the Society for the Environment in collaboration with its licensed partner, the Institute of Agricultural Engineers with the event hosted at Cranfield University.
The subject for this lecture was “Developments in Environmental Regulation” and was given by Paul Leinster, Chief Executive of the Environment Agency & Chartered Environmentalist (CEnv). His presentation covered the wide ranging remit of the Environment Agency and explained the guiding principles of environmental regulation, from implementation to measured outputs.
Central to the theme of the lecture was the way that the Environment Agency has responded to the changing political and environmental landscape with its model of compliance, organisational and cost-saving including the establishment of a National Centres for Permitting and Customer Contact, the development of guidance, earned autonomy through compliance sign-off by Directors and the role of Environmental Management Systems, the Agency’s relationship with Government, the developing European union (EU) 7th Environmental Action Programme & the future agenda.
From my perspective, it is important to reflect on the achievements that the Environment Agency has made over the past two decades. I was privileged to be part of the early development of the Agency with the challenges of establishing a new culture and working methods as well as breaking ground in establishing good working relationships with Government and business. New challenges will present themselves especially in relation to the Red Tape Challenge and the five-year review of the Environment Agency combined with Natural England, which will impact over the coming year.
The presentation was followed by a very lively question and answer session from around 80 CEnv delegates and their guests.
A copy of the presentation can be downloaded from http://bit.ly/XpNK8Q