Eco Chamber

Every week, the ENDS team enters the ECO Chamber to discuss the UK’s biggest green news stories, and take a forensic look at one of the deep-rooted environmental issues facing us today.This week, ENDS journalists look back at:The biggest environmental crimes and fines of 2024.The farmers sticking salmon up their sleevesAnd the politicians who fumbled their environmental policy pledges during the general election.For this week’s deep-dive, the team discusses what Labour’s arrival has meant for environmental policy in the UK and what might be ahead. This episode was recorded on 6 December 2024. 

Every week, the ENDS team enters the ECO Chamber to discuss the UK’s biggest green news stories, and take a forensic look at one of the deep-rooted environmental issues facing us today.This week, ENDS journalists look at:Why the language used by prime minister Sir Keir Starmer and his deputy Angela Rayner in the last week in reference to nature protections has prompted a strong backlash from major environmental NGOs. For the news-in-brief: Shell has formed a joint venture with Equinor to ‘extend the life’ of North Sea oil and gas production; Campaigners are disappointed over the housing secretary's green light for M&S’s flagship redevelopment; and the Office for Environmental Protection’s chief executive is “quite astonished by how much environmental law is not complied with”.For this week's deep-dive, the team explores what the 6,000 abstraction licence breaches recorded in past decade tell us.

Every week, the ENDS team enters the ECO Chamber to discuss the UK’s biggest green news stories, and take a forensic look at one of the deep-rooted environmental issues facing us today.This week, ENDS journalists look at:The environmental grant payments suspended by the environment secretary Steve Reed and his plans to set the sector on a new path.For the news-in-brief: DEFRA may have broken the law when it comes to giving Cruiser SB the greenlight for farmers; rivers close to sugar beet farms contain the highest levels of neonic pesticides and the failed global treaty to scrap plastics.For this week’s deep-dive the team discusses the implications of the Environment Agency's decision to issue a closure notice on the notorious Walleys Quarry. 

Every week, the ENDS team enters the ECO Chamber to discuss the UK’s biggest green news stories, and take a forensic look at one of the deep-rooted environmental issues facing us today.This week, ENDS journalists look at:Why farmers are still furious with the government and the big agricultural policy changes slipping under the radar in Wales;A milestone moment for the beleaguered recycling policy, the deposit return scheme;And the news-in-brief: what you need to know about the outcome of the COP29 climate summit; why chancellor Rachel Reeves is talking nature to the Bank of England; and the biodiversity and climate jobs about to lose funding at the Forestry Commission.

According to some estimates, the environment sector is among the least diverse profession in the UK, second only to agriculture. The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics show that in the 12 months to June 2024, 93% of environmental professionals were white, and 7% identified as Black, Asian or belonging to an ethnic minority group. Surveys have also found evidence of overt and covert racism in the sector.To understand what lies behind the sector’s problem with race and the implications for the environmental profession and its future, we speak with:Manu Maunganidze, the co-director for inclusion and climate Justice at Students Organising for Sustainability (SOS-UK) and co-author of the sector’s landmark RACE Report.Nadia Shaikh, Right to Roam campaigner and Raven Network organiser.Sarah Mukherjee, head of the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment.Edel McGurk, Natural England’s regional director for the south-east and senior champion for the regulator’s ethnicity and race network.

Every week, the ENDS team enters the ECO Chamber to discuss the UK’s biggest green news stories, and take a forensic look at one of the deep-rooted environmental issues facing us today.This week, ENDS journalists look at:How residents in the UK’s most known PFAS-polluted place are working with lawyers to investigate a first of its kind legal claimWhy the Office for Environmental Protection believes that water pollution rules for farmers in England “may be unlawful”And the news-in-brief: the lowdown on DEFRA’s assessment of the effectiveness of biodiversity net gain exemptions; why pesticide usage data must now be made available to the public; and the chair of the water commission's plan to “restore trust” in the sector. In this week’s deep dive, we reveal how a market town in the Cotswolds has a PFAS problem, with high levels of the forever chemicals discovered near land earmarked for hundreds of new homes and a primary school.

Every week, the ENDS team enters the ECO Chamber to discuss the UK’s biggest green news stories, and take a forensic look at one of the deep-rooted environmental issues facing us today.This week, ENDS journalists look at:The environmental implications of Labour’s first budget in over a decade-and-a-half and what it means for DEFRA.And the news-in-brief: The mother of the first person in the world to have air pollution on their death certificate has settled her legal claim against the government, Natural England’s approval of a protected saltmarsh demolition may have been unlawful and the COP 16 walkouts. For this week’s fact check, we look into the truth behind claims made by the former president of the National Farmers Union that the government’s latest changes to agricultural property relief will ‘destroy lives… and ruin the countryside’.

Every week, the ENDS team enters the ECO Chamber to discuss the UK’s biggest green news stories, and take a forensic look at one of the deep-rooted environmental issues facing us today.This week, ENDS journalists look at:The new waste group 'PRO' in charge of the government’s forthcoming extended producer responsibility roll-out.The big emission cuts that the government is toying as part of its next carbon budget.And the news-in-brief: the sand-eel fishing ban that’s irked the EU, Natural Resources Wales’ tax liabilities and the Somerset farmer blaming slurry pollution on the weather report. For this week’s fact check, we look into the truth behind the claim by government and industry that glass will be an expensive and complex addition to the forthcoming roll out of a UK-wide deposit return scheme.