Environmental Improvement Plan 2025: The current picture

On 16 July, The Department of Environment and Rural Affairs (Defra) published its annual Environmental Improvement Plan Progress Report. The report assesses the government’s progress towards its statutory targets and broader environmental goals. It also offers an early evaluation of whether the government’s latest version of the Environmental Improvement Plan (EIP2025), published in December 2025, can accelerate progress. The publication also contains a response to the assessment report published in Jan 2026 by the Office of Environmental Protection (OEP).

The EIP2025 is the government’s roadmap for improving the state of England’s natural environment. It builds on previous strategies including the EIP 2023, and the 25-Year Environment Plan first published in 2018, that outline the government’s approach to delivering its statutory targets.

The EIP is organised around 10 overarching goals, broken down into 91 commitments and associated actions. The 10 goals are:

1. Restoring nature
2. Clean air
3. Clean and plentiful water
4. Minimising environmental harm from chemicals and pesticides
5. Minimising our waste
6. Using resources from nature sustainably
7. Mitigating and adapting to climate change
8. Reducing risk of harm from environmental hazards
9. Enhancing biosecurity
10. Enhancing beauty, heritage and engagement with the natural environment

The importance of the EIP goals for land managers and landowners is twofold. - -

• Firstly, many of the environmental outcomes achieved through EIP actions will have direct impacts on the health and wellbeing of rural communities, as well as the profitability of rural businesses.
• Secondly, many of the commitments and actions outlined in the EIP depend on rural land managers and landowners playing an important role.

EIP 2025 was intended to “drive the move from intention to real-world delivery” of Environment Act targets by introducing a plan that was more ambitious, rigorous and specific than its 2023 predecessor. The assessment by the OEP recognises the increased ambition of the plan but finds that the government is still falling short of reaching many of its environmental commitments.

Many, if not all, of the environmental goals outlined in the EIP will have important implications for rural land managers and landowners. However, we will focus on three critically important areas of environmental delivery for the health and wellbeing and businesses of rural land managers and landowners:

• Goal 3: Clean and plentiful water
• Goal 7: Mitigating and adapting to climate change
• Goal 8: Reducing risk of harm from environmental hazards

Access to adequate supplies of clean water is at the forefront of many minds as drought is declared for half of England and the entirety of Wales. These types of drought events greatly impact crop yields and livestock, as has happened several times in the last 15 years. Clean water is also essential for human and livestock health and continues to be impacted by pollutants, particularly from agricultural run-off and wastewater treatment plants.

The OEP assessment report highlights that there is much that still needs to be done to ensure that England has resilient water supplies in the long term. The report highlights both a persistent deficit in England’s public water supply and a lack of strategic planning to ensure that the agricultural sector is resilient to water scarcity. Much of England’s agriculture is rainfed; however, both public and private sources are critical to rural business.

The report further finds that pressures on both private and public water supplies are likely to grow due to increased demand and the impacts of climate change. Therefore, there is a need for the government to accelerate delivery, and for key rural sectors to focus on building strategies for increasing their resilience to water scarcity.

Equally, while progress has been made towards water quality issues like nutrient losses from farms and sewage inputs, many waterbodies remain in poor condition.

Climate change is a key factor that underlies many of the increasing pressures on rural areas and businesses, including water scarcity, flooding and wildfires. Climate change also makes it more challenging for landowners and land managers to manage key habitats. For example, to fulfil obligations they may have to bring protected areas and sites like SSSIs to good status.

The OEP report stresses that while the UK has continued to reduce its carbon emissions, the rate and scale of change needs to hugely increase to meet targets. The report proposes Environmental Land Management schemes with greater longevity, stability and scale of ambition could be a valuable way of achieving upscaling.

The report also critiques the lack of progress on climate adaptation and finds that there is a critical need for a coherent strategy for adapting the agricultural sector to the mounting impacts of climate change.

Extreme weather events in England are increasing in frequency and severity alongside changes in climate. Rural communities have been significantly affected by increases in floods, droughts, heatwaves and wildfires.

At present, EIP goals are strongly focused on flooding. The OEP report finds that the government has made good progress on protecting properties from flooding and introducing nature-based solutions to reduce flooding. Government efforts in rural areas have included raising the Internal Drainage Board Fund to £91 million, for increasing the flood resilience of rural communities and farms. The Farming Recovery Fund was also expanded to support farmers and landowners who were affected by flood and other extreme weather.

Actions to mitigate floods are welcome; however, as noted in the OEP report, other weather hazards including droughts and wildfires need political attention that is currently lacking in the report. There is a need for specific ambitions and efforts in these areas to mitigate the current and mounting problems posed by climate change.

Overall, the reports present a mixed picture in these three critical areas for rural communities and businesses. Both reductions in carbon emissions and improvements in flood protection are welcome. However, progress is needed across these areas to support rural resilience into the future.