The Environment Strategy for Scotland: Equality Impact Assessment (EQIA)

Background

The Environment Strategy sets out a holistic framework for delivering Scotland’s role in tackling the global crises of nature loss, climate change and pollution. The Strategy brings together the Scottish Government’s existing policy response to tackling nature loss, climate change and pollution, highlighting the importance of carefully managing synergies and trade-offs across these goals. It builds on these existing policies by outlining new priorities and proposals. These focus, in particular, on opportunities for supporting the economic and societal changes needed to help tackle these global crises in ways that create wider benefits for Scotland – supporting green jobs and industries, improving people’s health, tackling poverty and promoting social justice.

It sets out steps for supporting and enabling these changes in ways that will transform our country for the better, improving the lives of people across Scotland. The Strategy is designed to capture the wealth of opportunities that transitioning to a green economy, and shifting towards sustainable lifestyles, will create for Scotland’s prosperity and wellbeing.

The Environment Strategy fulfils Ministers’ obligation under section 47 of the UK Withdrawal from the EU (Continuity) (Scotland) Act 2021 to prepare and publish an environmental policy strategy, with section 47 also requiring Scottish Ministers to have due regard to the strategies when making policies, including proposals for legislation.

Vision and outcomes

The 2045 vision for the Strategy begins by describing our ambitions for fulfilling Scotland’s role in tackling the global crises of nature loss, climate change and pollution, helping to safeguard our shared planet for all life on Earth. The vision also sets out how we will harness the enormous opportunities this creates for Scotland to flourish as a fairer, greener and more prosperous nation.

The vision recognises that tackling these crises will depend on changes in Scotland’s economy and society. This, in turn, can help to transform Scotland for the better – for example by supporting green jobs and industries, supporting and enabling people and communities in Scotland to live sustainably – in ways that also tackle inequalities and poverty and create wider benefits for people’s health and wellbeing.

The Strategy identifies a set of outcomes to support the delivery of this vision. Four outcomes describe our goals for tackling climate change and restoring the health of our natural environment, in Scotland and overseas:

• Scotland’s nature is protected and restored
• We have ended Scotland’s contribution to climate change
• We minimise pollution and waste in our environment
• Scotland’s global environmental impact is sustainable.

Two outcomes describe the positive transformations in our society and economy that will support these goals, while creating wider benefits for Scotland’s prosperity and wellbeing:

• Scotland’s society is transformed for the better by living sustainably, in harmony with nature
• Scotland’s net zero, nature positive and circular economy thrives within the planet’s sustainable limits.

Two cross-cutting outcomes explain how we will build Scotland’s resilience to the impacts of these global crises and support wider goals for social justice in Scotland and overseas:

• We build Scotland’s resilience to climate change and other global environmental risks
• These transformations are achieved through a just transition, supporting support climate and environmental justice and intergenerational equity.

The Environment Strategy also presents high-level pathways for driving progress towards the outcomes. These pathways summarise key existing policies while also identifying proposals and priorities to guide future policy development across the breadth of government. The Strategy sets out arrangements for monitoring and reporting progress towards the outcomes, in order to guide improvements to our approach.

To support the development of the Strategy, we commissioned substantial new research focusing on the economy, society and global outcomes, which have been supported by stakeholder working groups.

Monitoring Framework

An Initial Monitoring Framework was published in 2021 to identify the set of high-level indicators that will be used to monitor progress towards each outcome. These indicators were chosen to provide a strategic and accessible overview of progress – signposting, where relevant, to more detailed indicators set out in the individual strategies and plans that sit within the Environment Strategy framework. We launched a website to report on the status and trends of indicators and explain what this tells us about our progress towards each outcome.

We intend to review and further develop the Monitoring Framework in order to address these areas. As part of this, we will reflect updates to the Strategy’s outcomes since the initial Framework was published. We will also take account of ongoing and planned work to develop nature restoration targets and circular economy targets. We look forward to working with stakeholders and public bodies as we take this forward.

Who the policy affects

The Environment Strategy will apply across Scotland and does not specifically target sections of society, but its benefits will impact society as a whole. The wide scope of the Strategy will provide a positive impact on all individuals, including those persons with protected characteristics. There is evidence to suggest that the steps in the Strategy for promoting environmental quality and providing access to nature will give greater benefits to people with the protected characteristics of age, disability, gender, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion and belief, gender reassignment and sexual orientation. The research indicates that poorer environmental quality and access to nature tends to be suffered alongside other disadvantages that impact disproportionally on certain groups. However, it will be important to consider and mitigate against any potential unintended consequences from the Environment Strategy that could arise from the priorities and proposals, in areas such as green infrastructure, sustainable lifestyles and town planning.

The Strategy aims to improve the wellbeing of everyone in Scotland and to ensure people can enjoy the life-supporting benefits that a healthy environment provides. This includes increasing access to greenspaces and improving air quality, which will create significant health benefits and help to tackle inequalities.

The Strategy brings together the Scottish Government’s existing policy response for tackling nature loss, climate change and pollution and aims to support an integrated approach, taking account of synergies and potential tensions. It focuses, in particular, on opportunities for supporting the economic and societal changes needed to help tackle these global crises in ways that create wider benefits for Scotland – supporting green jobs and industries, improving people’s health, tackling poverty and promoting social justice.

This has the potential to positively impact everyone in our society, including those with protected characteristics by:

• improving people’s health and wellbeing
• tackling poverty and inequalities
• supporting jobs and businesses.

Whilst setting a clear direction of travel, both the Strategy and the pathways are high-level in nature and as such cannot be assessed in detail. However, it is anticipated that everyone, including those with protected characteristics will benefit with there being no disproportionate impact on any particular group.

When delivering the priorities and proposals set out in the Environment Strategy, these will be assessed for their impact on people and businesses, and further inclusive engagement and impact assessments, including Equality Impact Assessments, will be carried out where appropriate.