Green Infrastructure meaning

In this issue: Key developments and materials Electricity and gas market regulation and licensing Networks and network connections Renewable energy Air emissions, efficiency, and climate change International energy Daily and weekly news alerts New and updated content Dates for your diary Trackers Latest Q&A Key developments and materials Spring Statement 2025—Key Energy announcements Delivered to Parliament on 26 March 2025, the Spring Statement 2025 saw the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Rt Hon Rachel Reeves MP, set out economic projections alongside refreshed tax and public spending plans, following the Autumn Budget 2024. For a recap of the principal Autumn Budget 2024 measures affecting energy and environmental policy, see LNB News 30/10/2024 68. Although the Spring Statement 2025 contained only limited energy‑specific changes, we highlight the principal announcements relevant to the sector...

In this issue: Key developments and materials New technologies Internet Advertising, marketing and sponsorship Telecommunications LexTalk®TMT: a Lexis®Nexis community Daily and weekly news alerts New and updated content Dates for your diary Trackers Useful information Key developments and materials Assimilated law procedures paused as part of UK–EU ‘reset’. The government has deferred commencement of section 6 of the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 as it works towards a UK–EU reset. As a result, the new court processes for assimilated law will not take effect on 1 October 2024 as previously planned. See: LNB News 30/09/2024 27 and LNB News 26/09/2024 2. Accordingly, the timetable shifts and the new procedural rules are postponed. New technologies DSIT confirms the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill will be brought to Parliament in 2025. The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) confirmed this following the July 2024 King’s Speech. The Bill seeks...

UK developments FCA speech highlights need for clarity and higher standards in transition finance The Financial Conduct Authority has released a speech by Alicia Kedzierski, head of department in the sustainable finance division, delivered at the Loan Market Association’s Sustainable Finance Conference. Titled ‘Raising standards in transition finance: clarity, coherence, collaboration’, it emphasises the loan market’s pivotal role in funding the UK’s move to a low‑carbon economy. Kedzierski calls for clear, consistent definitions of ‘transition finance’ and for designing transition instruments so they neither overlap with nor compete against other product categories. See: LNB News 12/11/2025 14. Sources: Raising standards in transition finance: clarity, coherence, collaboration; and The sustainability‑linked loans market – two years on. UKEF announces reinsurance agreement with Brazil and clean growth initiatives ahead of COP30 UK Export Finance has entered a reinsurance agreement with Brazil’s export credit agency, ABGF—the first agreement ABGF has made with another export credit agency. The arrangement will allow UKEF‑backed guarantees to support Brazilian exports that include British content, prioritising...

The sustainable finance market has seen explosive growth in select product segments over the past five years. Annual green bond issuance, for instance, topped US$500bn in 2021, and environmental resilience is becoming an increasingly significant driver of investment choices worldwide. Yet the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimates that US$6.9tn a year will be needed through 2050 to fund infrastructure that achieves development goals and delivers a low-carbon, climate-resilient future. If nothing changes, current market finance will fall far short in both scale and approach. One clear but transformative answer is to pool and amplify sustainable assets via sustainable securitisation. For this to be workable, a critical pipeline of sustainable finance assets across multiple classes must be available in the market. Sustainable securitisation can concurrently offer institutional investors access to sustainable assets while easing pressure on bank balance sheets. At present, most infrastructure schemes depend on bank loans, yet alternative funding sources are essential because the US$90tn needed for global sustainable infrastructure cannot be provided by banks...

Introduction Regulation of water spans the supply of safe, high quality drinking water for consumption, the abstraction of water from a range of sources, the treatment and disposal of wastewater, including sewage, and the control and management of floodwater. In the UK, oversight began with the Public Health Act 1848, which obliged the delivery of clean water in towns and cities. Although 19th century sewer networks expanded, encouraged by the framework in the Public Health Act 1848, comprehensive regulation of that part of the sector only arrived on privatisation under the Water Act 1989. Today’s regime sits in the Water Industry Act 1991 (as variously amended from time to time) (WIA 1991) and the Water Resources Act 1991 (as variously amended) (WRA 1991), empowering regulators to act to protect the environment and the needs of water users, as well as to oversee water abstraction licences. Flood risk management is contained within a number of legislative provisions, with key legislation relating to the powers and duties of internal drainage boards...

EU ambitions to cut landfill disposal, together with advances in technology, spurred the roll-out of new waste infrastructure across the UK. Broadly, two principal contracting routes exist for such schemes: Waste Private Finance Initiative (PFI) and Public-Private Partnership (PPP) infrastructure contracts, which, from February 2025, are generally subject to the Procurement Act 2023. Existing PFI and Private Finance 2 (PF2) arrangements entered into before November 2018 continue to run Merchant waste infrastructure contracts A merchant contract is a binding agreement between a business (the merchant) and, commonly, an acquiring bank. Merchant waste schemes are those where the sponsor (or ‘acquiring bank’) is a private entity, for example the Green Investment Group. They may cover projects reliant on private, specialist feedstocks such as refuse derived fuel, commercial and industrial waste, and waste wood. This Practice Note concentrates on merchant waste infrastructure contracts. For details on waste PFI/PPP schemes, see Practice Note: Waste projects—waste PFI/PPP infrastructure projects. For general background on waste projects, including...