Environment at a Glance Indicators

United Kingdom

This country profile features selected environmental indicators from the OECD Core Set, building on harmonised datasets available on OECD Data Explorer. The indicators reflect major environmental issues, including climate, air quality, freshwater resources, waste and the circular economy, biodiversity, and selected policy responses to these issues. Differences with national data sources can occur due to delays in data treatment and publication, or due to different national definitions and measurement methods. The OECD is working with countries and other international organisations to further improve the indicators and the underlying data. The text of this country profile is drawn from the OECD Environmental Performance Review of the United Kingdom 2022.

Context

The UK's economy is highly service oriented. Its energy, carbon and material intensity is below the OECD average. Over the past decade, the country has managed to decouple several environmental pressures from economic growth. However, air pollution remains a health concern. Agricultural management, climate change and infrastructure development continue to put pressure on the natural environment. Prior to the COVID-19 crisis, the population enjoyed relatively high well-being, although growth had been relatively sluggish since 2016. The economic downturn caused by the Covid-19 pandemic hit the economy hard, with GDP contracting by 9.3% in 2020. The economy recovered (+7.4%) in 2021 and is projected to grow by 3.6% in 2022.

The United Kingdom is made up of four countries: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland Population is dense, particularly around south-eastern England and the Midlands. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are more sparsely populated except around major cities. The country hosts a diverse mix of habitats and species for its small size (approximately 240 000 km²) with a marine area approximately 3.5 times the size of the land area. The United Kingdom has significant, although declining, fossil fuel resources. Most of the oil and gas production comes from offshore fields in the North Sea. The energy mix is dominated by fossil fuels but coal has been gradually replaced by renewables (mostly biofuels and waste and wind) over the past decade. Transport is the largest energy consumer and greenhouse gas emitter. Road is the dominant transport mode.

Environmental policy is devolved to the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive. The UK government is responsible for environmental policy in England. After 47 years of membership, the United Kingdom left the European Union on 31 January 2020 retaining the EU environmental law in the national legislation as a bridging measure. The Environment Act 2021 lays out a domestic framework for environmental governance post-EU exit (most provisions apply to England only).

Climate change

The UK has one of the strongest records of emissions reduction in the OECD since the early 1990s. Energy industries have been the largest source of emission reductions, with the shift in electricity generation from coal to gas and, in the past decade, to renewable energy. Progress is slower in other sectors; transport is the largest greenhouse gas (GHG) emitter. With the COVID-19 pandemic and associated restrictions, GHG emission have decreased by 9% in 2020 (BEIS, 2022).

GHG emission intensities per person and per GDP are low compared to other OECD countries. However, the UK’s carbon footprint per person, which includes emissions embedded in imported goods and services, is above the OECD Europe average.

Energy mix and share of renewables

The United Kingdom has significant, although declining, fossil fuel resources. Most of the oil and gas production comes from offshore fields in the North Sea. The energy mix is dominated by fossil fuels but coal has been gradually replaced by renewables over the past decade. The UK’s commitment to end coal use by 2024, EU air quality regulations and increased carbon price support rates have contributed to this shift.

The country has achieved a remarkable growth in renewable electricity, particularly wind where the United Kingdom is a world leader. Contracts for difference that provide 15-year contracts to renewable generators at a guaranteed strike price have led to strong cost reductions and significant investment.

Air quality

Air emissions

Emissions of most major air pollutants have declined significantly over recent decades with the shift from coal for domestic heating and power generation, and stricter emission standards. However, the rate of reduction has slowed down for most pollutants in recent years. Emission intensities are well below the OECD average. Industrial and domestic combustion (heating) are major sources of sulphur oxide (SOx), carbon monoxide (CO) and fine particulate matter (PM_2.5), while road transport is the main emitter of nitrogen oxides (NOx), and non-methane volatile organic compound (NMVOC) emissions mainly come from solvent use. The country has met its 2020 reduction targets for SOx, NOx, PM_2.5 and NMVOC under the Gothenburg Protocol but has exceeded the 2020 target for ammonia (NH₃ from agriculture) (Defra, 2022). Further efforts are needed to meet 2030 targets for all pollutants except SOx and NMVOCs.

Average population exposure to PM_2.5 constantly decreased since 2005 but remains above the WHO guideline value of 5 µ/m³. In the UK, the biggest human-made sources are stationary fuel combustion and transport. People in Scotland are least exposed to air pollution, while people living in Greater London are exposed to levels twice as high. Air pollution, including from domestic heating and road traffic, continues to be the largest environmental risk to the public’s health.

Freshwater resources

Use of freshwater resources

UK abstracts less than 5% of its internal and renewable resources and is therefore under low water stress, although risks of water shortages are projected due to climate change. The country has a low intensity of freshwater abstraction for public water supply per person compared to other OECD countries. Abstraction levels have varied with the use of cooling water in power generation (Defra, 2019).

Data on wastewater treatment levels are incomplete. In 2016, the United Kingdom complied with the collection and secondary treatment targets (Articles 3 and 4) of the EU Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive, and was close to achieving the more stringent target (Article 5). However, pollution from sewer overflows is of particular concern.

Waste, materials and circular economy

Municipal waste

Since a peak in 2004, the amounts of municipal waste generated in the UK fell until 2012 and have stalled since, while population continued to grow. As a result, municipal waste generated per person has fallen below the OECD and OECD Europe averages. This is partially due to the UK’s definitions of municipal waste, which have varied slightly among the four nations and over time, and which exclude waste from businesses that do not use municipal collection services. Nonetheless, awareness raising for waste reduction, separate collection and greater environmental awareness may have also encouraged household waste reduction.

Since 2000, the UK has sent a steadily decreasing share of municipal waste to landfills while the share of incineration with energy recovery more than quadrupled. A gradually rising landfill tax played a key role in this shift. The share of composting operations also rose sharply while that of recycling operations increased more modestly.

Material consumption

Reflective of a continued shift towards a service-based economy, the per person domestic material consumption (DMC) of UK has fallen until 2019, while material productivity has increased: it is the third highest among OECD countries. UK per person material footprint is more than double that of DMC.

Non-metallic minerals, as in most OECD countries, constitute the largest share of the material mix, almost all of which is used by the construction sector. Imports constitute half of UK’s overall DMC. The sharp decline from 2007 to 2009, in particular for non-metallic minerals, was due to the fall in construction during the financial crisis. Since 2004, there has been a steady decline in fossil fuel carriers due to the shift in energy supply from coal towards renewable sources. Since 2009, this decline has offset increases in biomass and non-metallic minerals: as a result, DMC remained largely unchanged. Since 2020, consumption of non- metallic minerals started to increase again.

Biodiversity

Between 2012 and 2018, land converted to artificial land was among the highest in Europe. Pressures from habitat change (land use/condition) and pollution are the key drivers of change across terrestrial biodiversity. Other threats are over-exploitation, invasive species and climate change. The main threats to the marine environment are fishing pressure, climate change, acidification, hazardous substances and eutrophication.

The country hosts a diverse mix of habitats and species for its small size (approximately 240 000 km²) with a marine area approximately 3.5 times the size of the land area. This is due to the diversity of geology, landforms and sea floors, the long history of land management, the warming effect of the Gulf Stream, and a large tidal range. The status (abundance and/or distribution) of some nationally and internationally threatened species, is improving, but overall progress is insufficient to halt widespread and significant ongoing declines across many species (e.g. for priority species as a group and for groups such as farmland birds, specialist butterflies and other pollinating insects).

Knowledge gaps remain in the number and trends of threatened species in the UK. Overall 14% of UK species have had their conservation status assessed; 21% of these are threatened but none have gone extinct since 2010, although not all of the UK flora and fauna has been assessed.

Protected areas

The total extent of protected areas has increased significantly since 2015 to cover 29% of land area and 42% of the economic exclusive zone (EEZ) in 2020, due to the designation of inshore and offshore marine protected areas under European Directives, and national designation programmes. This is well above the Aichi 2020 targets of protecting at least 17% of land and 10% of marine and coastal areas. However, only 0.5% of land area has strict management objectives (IUCN management categories I and II). About 9% of the country’s land is covered by protected areas that have had management effectiveness assessments and the same is true for only 0.5% of the EEZ. Protected Area Management Effectiveness (PAME) evaluations, can be defined as: “the assessment of how well protected areas are being managed – primarily the extent to which management is protecting values and achieving goals and objectives" (Hockings et al. 2006).

Policy instruments

Environmentally-related taxation

Revenue from environmentally related taxes, which had risen to 2.3% of GDP in 2010, decreased slowly to 2% in 2018 before dropping sharply to 1.6% in 2022. The COVID‑19 crisis largely explains this drop, as travel restrictions reduced revenue from fuel duty and air passenger duty. Between 2010 and 2019, fuel duty revenue – the largest source of energy tax revenue – did not keep pace with GDP growth. This was due to a reduction in the tax base (fuel consumption remained broadly stable) and effective tax rates (freeze of duty rates since 2011). Expressed as a share of GDP, revenue from environmentally related taxes has fallen faster than the OECD Europe average over the past decade. The United Kingdom is one of the few OECD members to tax diesel and petrol at the same nominal rate.

As in many countries, most receipts come from taxes on energy products and, to a lower extent, on motor vehicles’ purchase and use and transport. Taxes on pollution and resource management such as landfill taxes and aggregate levy do not raise much revenue. However, high landfill tax rates have played a key role in diverting waste from landfills and a plastic packaging tax took effect from 2022.

Government support to fossil fuel and effective carbon rates

The United Kingdom implicitly supports the consumption and production of fossil fuels through favourable tax treatments. Oil and gas attract the bulk of government support. The largest revenue foregone from tax reliefs include reduced rate of value added tax (VAT) on supply of domestic fuel and power; VAT exemption of domestic passenger transport, including UK portion of scheduled flights; fuel duty not charged on kerosene used as heating fuel; and reduced rate on diesel used in off-road vehicles (‘red diesel’). The main production support measure is the Ring Fence Corporation Tax relief for first-year capital expenditures by the oil and gas sector and for decommissioning expenditures in the year they are incurred. In 2020, the UK announced an end to support for fossil-fuel projects overseas including export finance, aid funding, and trade promotion for new crude oil, natural gas, or thermal coal projects. Although different measures saw an enormous reduction in their fiscal cost such as the Inherited Liabilities Related to Coal Mining, the United Kingdom’s total support estimate increased by 9.1% in 2022 in comparison to 2021, as the economy reopened after the relaxation of pandemic measures, followed by a rebound in energy consumption, and the government’s efforts to assist households and firms after the start of the energy market crisis. As a major reform, the UK government removed in 2022 the reduced rate of Excise for Red Diesel/ Rebated rate for gas oil (red diesel) measure, which used to represent an important share of the overall UK government’s support of fossil fuels.

UK puts a price on GHG emissions via energy and carbon taxes and the UK Emissions Trading System. In 2021, 41% of GHG emissions (including biomass) were priced above EUR 60 per tonne of CO₂, the midpoint benchmark for carbon costs in 2020. Emissions priced at this level were primarily emitted by road transport and electricity. When excluding emissions from the combustion of biomass, over 70% of GHG are priced, of which 30% above 120 ERU/tonne.

Technology and innovation

Despite the doubling of public budget on energy research, development and deployment (RD&D) since 2014, the United Kingdom remained behind leading countries. Spending on nuclear energy expanded significantly, while increasing less for cross-cutting technologies and energy efficiency. The share of renewables in total public budget on energy RD&D has fluctuated over the past twenty years and remains at a relatively low level, just above 10%.The share of environmentally-related public R&D also remains at a low level, between 2% and 3%.

As in other OECD countries, innovation efforts in environmentally-related technologies have slowly declined in the past decade, although they remain at a relatively high level in absolute terms and in line with the OECD average as a share of total inventions.

Environment-related development assistance

The United Kingdom’s development co-operation architecture and policy changed significantly in 2020 with the creation of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union (EU). Its total official development assistance (ODA) increased to USD 15.8 billion in 2022 due to an increase in gross national income (GNI) and additional funding for in-donor refugee costs. ODA represented 0.51% of GNI. In 2020-21, the United Kingdom committed 31.3% of its total bilateral allocable aid in support of the environment and the Rio Conventions (DAC average of 34.3%), up from 22.3% in 2018-19. Twelve percent of screened bilateral allocable aid focused on environmental issues as a principal objective, compared with the DAC average of 11.3%. Twenty-eight percent of total bilateral allocable aid focused on climate change overall (the DAC average was 29%), up from 19.8% in 2018-19. The United Kingdom had a greater focus on mitigation (29.9%) than on adaptation (11.2%) in 2020-21. Four per cent of total bilateral allocable aid focused on biodiversity (compared with the DAC average of 6.5%), down from 5.8% in 2018-19.

References and further reading

BEIS (2022), UK territorial greenhouse gas emissions national statistics, https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/uk-territorial-greenhouse-gas-emissions-national-statistics

Defra, England's material footprint, https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/englands-material-footprint

Defra, UK’s Carbon footprint, https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uks-carbon-footprint

Defra, UK Material flow accounts, https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/environmentalaccounts/datasets/ukenvironmentalaccountsmaterialflowsaccountunitedkingdom

Defra, UK Statistics on waste, https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uk-waste-data

Defra (2022), Emissions of air pollutants, https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/emissions-of-air-pollutants

Defra (2021), Emissions of air pollutants in the UK - Summary, Department for Environment Food, and Rural Affairs, London, https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/emissions-of-air-pollutants/emissions-of-air-pollutants-in-the-uk-summary.

Defra (2021), UK Biodiversity Indicators 2021 Revised, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, London, https://data.jncc.gov.uk/data/31925413-3fa4-4382-962f-6ac2c168d542/ukbi2021-summary-booklet.pdf

Defra (2019), Water abstraction statistics: England, 2000 to 2017, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/785567/Water_Abstraction_Statistics_England_2000_2017_Final.pdf

JNCC (2019), Sixth National Report to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Joint Nature Conservation Committee, Peterborough, https://data.jncc.gov.uk/data/527ff89f-5f6b-4e06-bde6-b823e0ddcb9a/UK-CBD-6NR-v2-web.pdf.

OECD (2023), OECD Inventory of Support Measures for Fossil Fuels: Country Notes, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/5a3efe65-en

OECD (2023), "United Kingdom", in Development Co-operation Profiles, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/2dcf1367-en.

OECD (2022), OECD Environmental Performance Reviews: United Kingdom 2022, OECD Environmental Performance Reviews, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/b6a2be87-en.

Office for National Statistics environmental accounts, https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/environmentalaccounts/bulletins/ukenvironmentalaccounts/2021

UNEP-WCMC (2024), “Protected Area Profile for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland”, the World Database of Protected Areas, www.protectedplanet.net