Environment Agency enforcement and sanctions policy
How the Environment Agency uses its enforcement and sanctioning powers to secure compliance with laws that protect the environment.
Applies to England
Documents
Details
How the Environment Agency conducts enforcement activity for environmental offences and breaches.
Includes how we:
- make enforcement and sanctioning decisions including the decision to prosecute
- apply Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Act 2008 civil sanctions and when we may accept enforcement undertakings
- apply climate change civil penalties
- enforce the Control of Mercury (Enforcement) Regulations 2017
See our Offenceoffence Responseresponse Optionsoptions documents which set out the options available to every offence we regulate.
Last updated
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Updated the enforcement and sanctions policy and its annex 1 to reflect the legislative changes to civil sanctions, specifically variable monetary penalties.
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We have updated Annex 2 of our Enforcement and Sanctions Policy. This covers the Environment Agency’s approach to applying civil penalties for climate change schemes. We have made changes to Section D: Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS). These changes follow a consultation we carried out from 29 September to 10 November 2021.
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We've published new offence response options documents. We've added the links to the new documents.
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Amendments to Environmental Protection Act 1990.
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We updated Enforcement and Sanctions: Offence Response Options (ORO)
Update history
2025-10-10 12:00
Added Annex 4: Environment Act 2021 – the Environment Agency’s approach to applying civil sanctions and accepting enforcement undertakings. Updated the Environment Agency enforcement and sanctions policy to reference annex 4 where appropriate.
2025-10-02 09:30
Updated the enforcement and sanctions policy. The main changes are: removed reference to CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme; and included information on Clean Heat Market Mechanism. Also, updated annex 2. The main changes are: removed section C – CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme; corrected in section F2.3 – Climate Change Agreements bullet one and added bullets 2 and 5; and added section I – Clean Heat Market Mechanism.
2025-03-03 08:00
Updated Annex 2 section F to refer to how we apply discretion for Climate Change Agreements (CCA), and the approach we take when there is failure to submit a report on energy efficiency improvements or emissions reductions.
2024-12-12 16:49
Updated the enforcement and sanctions policy to make reference to the UK Emissions Trading Scheme (UK ETS) and the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA). Annex 2 now has an updated section A to take account of the UK ETS and CORSIA and Section G: UK ETS and Section H: CORSIA.
2023-12-11 09:00
Updated the enforcement and sanctions policy and its annex 1 to reflect the legislative changes to civil sanctions, specifically variable monetary penalties.
2022-03-17 12:23
We have updated Annex 2 of our Enforcement and Sanctions Policy. This covers the Environment Agency’s approach to applying civil penalties for climate change schemes. We have made changes to Section D: Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS). These changes follow a consultation we carried out from 29 September to 10 November 2021.