Expanding our influence

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: there is no better source of collective environment and sustainability knowledge than the IEMA membership.

When we assemble what we know and channel it in the right places, our impact and influence is beyond measure. If you need to see some evidence of what that looks like, click here to get your IEMA News update. There, you’ll see exactly what serious influence looks like. Because of all you know, how you share it and your absolute determination to make things better, we are able to shape legislation, regulation and standards that have a genuine global impact.

As you read on, you’ll see that members have been reviewing the UK’s Modern Slavery Act 2015. This was the first piece of legislation of its kind in the world, and now that it has been in place for a few years, the UK Home Office is reviewing its effectiveness – and IEMA was chosen to take part in the consultation. Throughout November, members were feeding back on where the Act is working, where power should lie and how compliance could be better supported. We’ve been able to take those views to the Home Office, and look forward to telling you more as things develop.

You’ll also see that recommendations for the UK’s new Environment Act were presented to the government at 10 Downing Street last month. The ambitious Blueprint for an Environment Act that we’ve been working on as part of the Broadway Initiative includes recommendations suggested and tested by IEMA members. I cannot emphasise enough how significant this is, and I think it is a real milestone in the story of our influence.

And if you needed any further convincing that, together, we enjoy a new scale of recognition and impact, IEMA will be hosting as part of the major COP24 international climate talks next month. We’ve had a presence at COP before, but this is the first time we’ll be there in our own right.

This is all because of you. Your generosity with your time and knowledge leads to our collective influence not only being recognised, but being genuinely respected on an international scale.

We’ll keep you posted on developments on all these areas and more. In the meantime, please keep getting involved. We can only transform the world to sustainability when we work together.