Recent decades have seen environmental challenges escalate to the point of crisis across the planet. In the UK, the situation is no different: climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution all have stark consequences for people across the country.

This era of crisis must end, beginning a transition towards a sustainable society with thriving people, a healthy economy, and a flourishing environment.

Both the Government’s strong mandate for environmental action and the widespread aspirations of the public to restore and enhance the environment provide the opportunity to make that vision real.

That ambition is attainable through a clear and urgent course of action: to transform the UK with a new Mission for Sustainable Wellbeing.

Transforming the UK for the good of people, the economy, and the environment is a matter of public service: the natural world is the foundation of all human needs, and we cannot meet our collective obligation to people now or in the future if we do not sustain it.

Acting now will also save on the exponential costs of delay and unlock the “economic opportunity of the 21st century”.

Each aspect of the environment warrants direct intervention and protection:

• Ambitious and robust governance for clean air
• Holistic land use and re-use for development
• A long-term approach to clean and sustainable water
• Transformative action to tackle climate change

At the same time, we cannot succeed until we address the big systems that underpin policy, and the ways they influence the environment:

• Implementation and delivery of policy, particularly at the local level
• A robust, modern, and sustainable planning system
• Sustainable education and skills

This report outlines the priority actions needed to make transformative, systemic changes for the benefit of communities and the natural world, without compromising on the actions needed to solve specific challenges.

Those priorities come from the expertise and evidence of hundreds of scientists, working together across disciplines to solve environmental challenges.

We can accelerate together towards a better future for the UK. One without environmental crisis or communities left behind in the transition, creating a country with thriving people, a healthy economy, and a flourishing environment.