Environment weekly highlights—23 March 2023

Article summary

This week's edition of Environment weekly highlights includes analysis of the main proposals from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities’ consultation on environmental outcomes reports, analysis of the High Seas Treaty on maritime biodiversity, and video analysis of the key points from the latest biodiversity net gain guidance. In addition, this week the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its AR6 Synthesis Report, the government passed the Bill to ban hunting trophies, the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) has published the summary of responses to its consultations on the principles of marine net gain, groundwater and surface discharge activities and the biodiversity metric and has announced that it will support new plans for the Water Services Regulation Authority (Ofwat) to take action against water companies that pay dividends to their shareholders despite not meeting the required performance standards.