England’s privatised water and sewage companies paid out around £377 to shareholders for each hour they polluted last year, new research shows.

The shocking figures show that it still “pays to pollute”, campaign group We Own It have claimed.  

The UK’s 19th century plumbing infrastructure is not equipped to deal with a growing population, so the Environmental Agency allows water companies to release overflow after heavy rains. This means that the country’s waterways and seas are regularly swamped with excrement.

But the money that should be invested back into the system is funnelled into shareholder pockets, We Own It analysis suggests.

Shareholders received over £1.35bn in dividends in 2022/23 as their companies released sewage for more than 3.5 million hours last year.

 “No one else in Europe runs water like England,” said Matthew Topham, lead campaigner at We Own It. “Today’s figures are a clear reminder of why: under privatisation, you profit from pollution.”

“Privatisation is often said to have led to investment. Sadly, that’s just not true. All the cash invested has come from our bills.”

Severn Trent had the worst ratio of the English companies analysed. It released sewage for 440,446 hours last year, and paid shareholders £428m in dividends. This means it paid out £972 per hour of pollution.

They were followed by United Utilities (£692 per hour of pollution), Anglian water (£619), Northumbrian water (£396), Thames Water (£230), Wessex Water (£188), Yorkshire Water (£121), and South West Water (£23).

The only company without a comparable figure is Southern Water, which was forced into a dividend ban after a credit rating agency Fitch downgraded its credit worthy status in 2023.

Southern Water released sewage for 317,285 hours in 2023 and has paid out £2.3bn in dividends since privatisation, equivalent to £213 per hour if extrapolated across the whole privatisation period.

We Own It has launched an interactive tool to allow the public to visualise how much companies “profit from pollution” in their area.

Only re-nationalisation can fix the broken system, said Topham.

“The regulators had 35 years to get private companies working in the public’s interests. It hasn’t happened and the reality is it can’t. Regulators have a duty to shareholders, making it impossible to put our rivers and seas first,” he said.

James Wallace, CEO of River Action UK, echoed this call.

“These devastating figures show yet again that our government regulators have put polluters’ profits before people and our planet,” he said.

“With the general election looming we need the new government to regulate water companies with the full force of the law, prioritising cleaning up our rivers, securing freshwater and restoring nature.

“Failing companies should be put into special administration and refinanced with customer and public interests as well as environmental sustainability used as measures of financial performance.”

The UK’s slow progress on home insulation is costing bill payers an eye-watering £3.2 billion per year, new research has found.

No one likes a draughty house. But analysis by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit has revealed just how much inadequate insulation really costs us.

If the average UK home was upgraded one energy efficiency band – from an Energy Performance Certificate rating of D to a rating of C – each consumer would save £200 annually, the think tank found.

For the 4.4 million homes rated E or F, the bill payer would save even more: some £400 or £550 respectively.

Government inaction is costing Brits billions – a burden that is disproportionately borne by the country’s renters, said Dr Simon Cran-McGreehin, head of analysis at ECIU.

“Millions of British bill payers are still counting the cost of inaction and low investment in insulating homes over the past decade. Renters are in a particularly difficult situation given they don’t have any control over improving the warmth of their homes,” he said.

“Bills may have dropped slightly, but they are due to rise again ahead of winter when having a properly insulated home is the difference between affordable and astronomical energy bills.”

The government previously had a scheme to force private landlords to improve the energy efficiency of their properties. But prime minister Rishi Sunak scrapped the scheme in November last year, just one of a series of screeching net zero U-turns.

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Then home-secretary Suella Braverman said that net zero plans – including phasing out gas – risked “bankrupting” the British people.

But the UK’s reliance on gas and insulation failures simply make bills more expensive, said Cran-McGreehin.

“The UK has been particularly badly hit by the crisis because we’re so dependent on gas for electricity and home heating,” he said.

“Shifting to net zero means building more British renewables and insulating more homes and so becoming less dependent on foreign gas imports.”

Progress to insulate Britain’s homes has been agonisingly slow. The number of homes insulated through the government’s four landmark insulation schemes dropped around 40% in a single year, the New Economics Foundation think tank reported in January.

Bills aside, the environmental consequences of such delays are huge. Some 80% of the buildings that will be occupied in 2050 already exist today, so decarbonising them will be a big part of tackling climate change.

But Westminster–backed schemes delivered just 16% of the insulation measures needed last year for the UK to stay on track to meet its 2050 net zero commitments.

Speaking to the Big Issue earlier this year, architect Kevin McCloud urged the government to urgently retrofit homes.

“We have the solutions, it’s just about making them accessible and affordable to all,” he said. “The energy efficiency and green credentials of our homes have a huge impact on our wallets and our planet, as well as the UK’s leadership on climate. It’s time for our leaders to listen and act.”

Great British Energy is live – or at least, its website is.

Labour has long-pledged to establish a publicly owned national energy company if it wins the general election.

The clean energy firm – one of the party’s ‘six first priorities’ for government – would invest public money in renewable projects like wind farms and solar panels.

Today (31 May), Keir Starmer unveiled GBR’s website and logo, reiterating his promise to end the “pain and misery” of the cost of living crisis.

“Our clean power mission with Great British Energy will take back control of our destiny and invest in cheap, clean homegrown energy that we control,” he said.

But the Tories have slated it as “nothing more than a logo”, questioning whether it will really bring down bills. And environmental campaigners have said it doesn’t go far enough.

So how will it work – and what do experts think?

How will Great British Energy work?

For two years, Brits have suffered a series of sharp bill increases.

The price surge – prompted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent hike in wholesale gas prices – have seen the typical family pay around £1,880 more than if prices had stayed at their previous levels.

In 2022, fossil fuels accounted for 33% of the UK’s electricity generation. But ‘home-grown’ renewables are a less volatile energy source.

The government wants to transition fully to renewables by 2035, while Labour have promised to bring forward this target by five years.

Part of the Labour’s plan is Great British Energy, funded by an £8.3bn windfall tax on the profits of oil and gas companies. The UK already has a windfall tax but Labour would raise it from 75 per cent to 78 per cent.

This aspect has been welcomed by some in the industry: today, Greg Jackson from Octopus said that the UK’s reliance on fossil fuels adds “thousands of pounds to bills”.

“We’re pleased to see that [Labour] plan to fund a clean energy future by taxing the oil and gas giants,” he said.

It’s popular idea with the public, too: A YouGov poll in February suggested that 66% of people support a national energy company, while windfall taxes regularly polls approval ratings above 90%.

It is not a plan to nationalise energy fully. The company will compete with private providers, acting as just one player in the market – like state-owned Ørsted does in Denmark.

Former chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance endorsed the plan today, calling for grid decarbonisation to proceed with the same urgency that the COVID-19 vaccine rollout did.

“Moving swiftly towards a clean power system is an investment, not just a cost,” he told The Times. “Achieving energy self-sufficiency will protect us from the volatility of the international fossil fuel market.”

“If we choose to go slowly, others will provide the answers, and we will ultimately end up buying the solutions.”

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And the Energy, Climate and Intelligence Unit also welcomed the plan, calling for rapid decarbonisation.

“The UK has spent £100bn on gas during the energy crisis of the last couple of years, placing a burden not only on bill payers but also taxpayers as bills were subsidised. With prices are set to go up again in October, there will be a need to insulate from more gas price volatility,” said ECIU head of parliamentary engagement Alasdair Johnstone

“This means using less gas and more British renewables along with insulating homes so they leak less heat.”

But does it go far enough? And will it actually bring down bills?

However, some have questioned the scale of the plan.

Great British Energy will not generate energy itself. Instead, it will invest public money in projects like offshore wind farms and solar panels.

Last year, the Common Wealth think tank proposed a model where, by contrast, the government owns and operates state-owned generating assets such as wind farms. The “benefits of scale outweigh the caution”, they said

Trade Union Congress conducted analysis last year showing that this would cost between £61bn to £82bn of investment between 2025 and 2035. Labour have committee a little more than £8bn.

Environmental campaigners have also expressed concern with the ambition of the commitment, slating Labour’s decision to water down its £28bn-per-year spending pledge.

“Labour’s pledge to develop the UK’s enormous home-grown renewable energy potential is great news that will help to power the transition to a green economy that we so urgently need,” said Friends of the Earth’s head of policy, Mike Childs.

“But the party mustn’t rest on its laurels just because it has one strong green policy. We’re yet to hear how it intends to tackle the enormous carbon pollution created by transport and heating our homes, for example, which can be addressed by rolling out a nationwide programme of insulation, funding the switch to heat pumps, and delivering a true public transport renaissance.”

Will Great British Energy actually lower bills?

It could take a while for bills to fall. Earlier this week, Mark McAllister, the chairman of energy regulator Ofgem, said that the costs of building out the electricity network to support the transition to renewables would offset immediate savings.

“As we build in more and more renewables, we’re also building in the price, amortised over many years, of the networks as well,” he told the FT.

“If we look at the forecasts for wholesale prices and then build on top of that the costs of the network going forward, I think we see something in our view that is relatively flat in the medium term.”

However, the plan will mean a bigger portion of energy is derived from renewables, which will eventually mean cheaper bills, as the UK becomes less vulnerable to the fluctuations of the oil and gas market.

Visiting a sewer in Calcutta in the early ’90s left a lasting impression on Liam Fox. A minister in the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office at the time, appointed by then-PM John Major, Fox remembers his sanitation revelation. 
 
“We were basically just putting in piping to stop sewage flowing down a street. It was the reaction of the people that struck me. We might as well have given them a goldmine because clearly it made such a difference to their quality of life. 

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“It stuck with me,” Fox continues. “And in my time as defence secretary I began to get seriously concerned about the potential for conflict over water. Everybody was talking about oil and yet for me, the one thing that people would really fight for is the one thing they have to have, which is water.” 
 
Liam Fox was David Cameron’s first defence secretary, serving from 2010 until he resigned in 2011, after controversy about being accompanied on official MoD trips by friend and lobbyist Adam Werrity. Fox would later return to Theresa May’s government, appointed secretary of state for international trade, wrestling with the post-Brexit political landscape. 
 
His time at the top of government provided insight into the biggest issues facing us today, and Fox has identified water as being the biggest of them all. 
 
It’s May’s successor Fox has to thank for pushing him to take action on the issue – but not from a senior position within government. 
 
“When Boris [Johnson] relieved me of my cabinet duties in 2019, I decided to spend some time doing quality reading on climate,” Fox says. “From my own position with a science background [Dr Fox was a GP before an MP], what did the science actually tell us?” 

Being out of the thick of it helped Fox appreciate the bigger picture. 
 
“It’s not so much being outside as having the time,” he adds. “Government is very siloed. We think of our economics in one place, we think of security and risk in another and so on. We need to learn to join the dots.” 
 
And Liam Fox has done just that in his new book. The Coming Storm tells the story of water from how it arrived on Earth eons ago to how it influenced our evolution. It also points out potential pressure points regarding scarcity, global security and its importance in healthcare and climate change. 
 
It contains simply staggering facts that put precipitation in perspective. Of all the water in the world, only 3% is fresh water. Only 0.3-0.5% is available for our use. The population has grown by 6.6 billion since the start of the last century, but the amount of water available to drink, power industry and agriculture remains the same. 
 
The potential for conflict over this most valuable natural resource was something that caused Fox concern when defence secretary. In the years since, have these boiled over? 
 
“Two places where you can see the progression,” he begins. “One of them is the Nile because the Ethiopians have now finished building the Grand Renaissance Dam, which Sudan and Egypt fear could be used as a weapon. If the Ethiopians wanted to stop the outflow of the Blue Nile they could do so.  

“More of a worry for me is Tibet. More than 40% of all the world’s population get either their drinking, agricultural or industrial water from a river that arises on the Tibetan Plateau – either the Indus, Ganges, the Brahmaputra, the Mekong, the Yellow or the Yangtze. China now has control over the headwaters of all those rivers. China is not interested in Tibet because of the Dalai Lama, China is interested in Tibet for its natural resources, number one being water.” 
 
Water supply has long been both a cause of and weapon waged in war. The Water Conflict Chronology website records incidents dating back to 2500BC to recent events such as the Kakhovka Dam on the Dnipro River being destroyed by Russian forces in Ukraine and Israel attacking water wells in Gaza this year – over half of Gaza water sites have been damaged or destroyed since Israel began military action last year. 
 
There is, Liam Fox says, a dire need for international law to be developed around water rights. “The only real law that applied to the Nile, for example, came from British colonial times when we had a water-sharing treaty,” he says. “We need to get a body of international law that’s justiciable and enforceable. You also need to ensure that you use technology to minimise the risk of dependency. In Gaza’s case, that will mean building up hugely their ability to desalinate and provide themselves with fresh water. 
 
“The good news on that is where there have been real efforts, real progress has been made. When countries determine their water use based on how much water they actually use and not abstract, territorial or sovereign claims then it’s possible to reach agreement.” 

A global problem

If you’re in the UK reading this, it’ll either be an unseasonal but welcome early summer, or it’ll be raining. Probably raining, which makes it hard to care about problems largely centred in faraway lands. But Fox writes that we are only enjoying “the illusion of water and food security”. How long can that illusion last? 
 
“Well, it will be stressed if the global population continues to rise at anything like the level that it has. Throw in unknown of the impacts of climate change. And if you get, as I rather suspect we will, big changes in water flows in South Asia, then you could get very big problems with famine and thirst and mass migration as a consequence. So if we think we can ignore this because it happens somewhere else, somewhere else can be over here quite quickly. 
 
“Global problems require global solutions. Don’t think you don’t have a responsibility, which I know is uncomfortable and some people will be in denial but look at the science. Get a grip and make your judgments based on reality and empiricism, not on instinct or prejudice. The data is there and unless we want to fall back into an anti-Enlightenment society, we better wake up and not smell the coffee but read the figures.”

So Liam Fox is woke on climate related issues which includes migration, a situation he notes in his book is “made worse by simplistic rhetoric”. 
 
Rhetoric from government focuses on demonising people coming to our shores… “Yeah, and not the causes,” he interjects. 
 
“When I was trade secretary, I used to warn that if the G20 increased their level of protectionism, then that would stop developing countries being able to trade their way out of poverty. And if I lived in a world where I couldn’t trade my way out of poverty, but I had a mobile phone and I could see what prosperity looked like, I know what I would do.” 
 
Since 2009, 0.7% of imports were covered by tariffs or other restrictive measures, in this decade it has increased to 10.3%. 
 
“In other words,” Fox explains, “more than a tenfold level of protectionism in the world’s richest economies. ‘Til I was blue in the face, I used to say to people – and I remember seeing it to the WTO in Buenos Aires [Liam Fox was a candidate to become its director-general in 2020, but didn’t make the final round] – you may be able to protect your rust belts, but watch your borders because you cannot take economic decisions in a vacuum.” 
 
“I still hear people on both the left and right of politics saying, ‘I don’t believe in globalisation.’ Well, that’s nice, that’s like saying, ‘I don’t believe in nighttime.’ In business they’ve understood globalisation much better than in the world of politics. Politicians don’t really like globalisation very much because it limits their ability to have an impact over their own domestic events.” 
 
Politicians, especially now, don’t like looking past what will get them through the next five or six months ahead of a potential election, when they should be making the decisions needed to get us through the next five or six decades. Is there a way to navigate that short-termism? 
 
“We have got to try to get our debate out of the weeds and start to focus on bigger issues, because those bigger issues will have a huge impact on us, whether we want to think about them or not.”

Our water footprint 

The good news, unless you like chocolate, is that we can bring our own solutions to the problem. Another staggering set of statistics in the book concerns our own water use. We all know it’s advisable to drink 6-8 glasses of water per day, around 1.2 litres, but that’s just a drop in the ocean of what we’re actually consuming. According to the WWF, each of us in the UK is responsible for using 4,645 litres of water every day. 
 
Let’s break that down. 3,400 litres will be needed to grow the food we eat (or to grow the food the food we eat eats) and make raw materials like cotton, which averages at 211 litres for each of us. When you drink a cup of coffee, you’re actually consuming the 140 litres of water it took to grow the coffee beans needed for that one cup. 
 
This makes up our water footprint, most of which stands on other countries, countries which may experience far greater pressures on their water supply than we do at home. 
 
In response to this, Liam Fox alongside Dr Linda Yueh, adjunct professor of economics at the London Business School and fellow in economics at St Edmund Hall, Oxford University have developed a concept of Comparative Ecological Advantage. It’s an extension of Adam Smith’s theory that countries should focus on goods and services they can produce themselves; countries should now produce crops or make products that don’t do environmental harm – and as consumers we should be aware of where items are sourced. 
 
“Why would you grow strawberries in Andalucía when there’s no water there?” Fox asks. “How do you find ways of encouraging people to grow cotton in wet places and not in Syria? I would love to see voluntary labelling of the fruit and clothes we buy to say this item comes from a sustainably tradable environment.” 

He believes we should be more aware of how much water is required to produce different products. For example, it takes 15,000 litres to produce 1kg of beef, but only 4,300 litres to produce 1kg of chicken. The stark news is it takes 17,196 litres to produce 1kg of chocolate. And I for one eat more chocolate than beef. 
 
“Well you’re Scottish so that’s alright,” Fox consoles. “If cocoa beans are being grown in tropical places where they’re inundated with rain that may not be a problem. There’s a difference between buying your strawberries from a place where they have plenty of water and a place where it’s exacerbating their natural shortages. The biggest issue we have is people are not aware of the scale of the problem.” 

WAVE OF SHOCK STATS 

• Only 3% of the world’s water is freshwater 

• Only 0.3-0.5% of that is available for our use 

• Around 2 billion people do not have access to safe drinking water 

• By 2030, around 47% of the world’s population will be living in areas of high-water stress 

• The irrigation of global cotton crops is equivalent to twice the total annual water footprint for the UK 

• It takes 10,000-20,000 litres to produce 1kg of cotton 

• It takes 15,000 litres to produce 1kg of beef 

• It takes 4,300 litres to produce 1kg of chicken 

• It takes 17,196 litres to produce 1kg of chocolate 

• 140 litres of water required to produce coffee for one cup 

• According to the WWF we use 4,645 litres per person per day 

• 62% of the UK’s total water footprint is accounted by the use of water in other countries

The Coming Storm by Liam Fox is out now (Biteback, £25). You can buy it from The Big Issue shop on Bookshop.org, which helps to support The Big Issue and independent bookshops.

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Not all carbon footprints are created equal.

The richest 0.1% of Brits emit 12 times more greenhouse gases from transport than average person, new analysis from the Institute for Public Policy Research suggests. These high-flyers emit more than 22 times more greenhouse gases from transport than the lowest earners.

This wealthy group must make “rapid changes” to tackle climate change, the IPPR have urged. Meanwhile, the think tank has called on the government to invest in a fairer, more accessible public transport system.

“Our transport system both reflects and contributes to social inequalities,” said Dr Maya Singer Hobbs, senior research fellow at IPPR.  

“Reducing emissions can actually tackle some of that injustice, if done fairly. But while not everyone needs to make the same changes, those who are financially best off need to do the most.” 

The government must intervene to make this a reality, the IPPR has urged – taxing private jets, bringing forward the ban on new petrol cars, and investing in a public transport ‘renaissance’.

Who is responsible for the most public transport emissions?

Climate change is intensifying. Globally, we are not on track to keep heating below 1.5 degrees C – and must make ‘rapid and deep’ emissions cuts if we are to limit it to 2 degrees C.

Every fraction of a degree matters. At 1.5 degrees C warming, for example, about 14% of Earth’s population will be exposed to severe heatwaves at least once every five years. At 2 degrees warming that number jumps to 37%.


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Transport accounts for about a fifth of global CO2 emissions. But not everyone is equally responsible for this pollution. Half of all transport emissions in Britain come from just one in five people (15%) and the worst polluting 10% of the population are responsible for four tenths (42%) of all transport emissions.

People with an income over £100,000 travel at least double the distance each year of those earning under £30k, the IPPR research found.

Men are more likely to be high emitters than women, accounting for 68% of the highly affluent, unrestricted mobility group. Meanwhile, people from more deprived neighbourhoods tend to travel significantly less and emit fewer greenhouse gases than those from the least deprived.

The net zero transition is an opportunity to make transport fairer for everyone, reducing mobility inequality by helping people who can’t afford to own a car or fly.

But the government has failed to invest in key public transport services. Bus services outside of London have plummeted over the past 15 years, research released last year shows, with some areas seeing “staggering declines” of up to 80%. Train and tube strikes – launched by unions over ‘inadequate’ pay and working conditions – have shuttered large parts of the rail network over the past few years.

Lower-income people suffer when the government fails to invest in public transport, said Stephen Frost, principal research fellow at IPPR.

“By putting people at the heart of our approach to reducing Britain’s climate impacts we demonstrate both who is best placed to cut their emissions at the pace needed and how doing so can help tackle the underlying unfairness in who the transport system currently works for,” he urged.

“Now is not the time to slow down our efforts to reach net zero, doing so just fuels existing transport inequalities. The next UK government must step up the pace by delivering a credible, fair and people-focussed plan for more sustainable travel.”   

The most important step will be reducing frequent flying with levies and private jet taxes. However, Rishi Sunak last year pledged to stop ‘heavy handed’ aviation taxes. This is not good enough, the IPPR report suggests.

“The government’s current laissez–faire approach to decarbonising aviation is untenable for a fair transition to net zero,” its authors urge.

“Emissions cannot be reduced in-line with the UK’s 2030 and 2035 legally-binding climate commitments without action to reduce the emissions associated with frequent flying,” the report urges. “Not doing this puts the burden of the transition on the shoulders of those with the least responsibility for fuelling the climate crisis.”

While climate pressures mount, the fight for our environment is gathering pace around the UK and beyond. The people behind Knepp Estate, a 3,500-acre rewilding project just a few miles from Gatwick Airport, are changing the fates of endangered species – and getting the conservationists of tomorrow involved too.

Knepp, arguably one of Britain’s most successful rewilding projects, began its transformation at the turn of the millennium when its owner conceded that the land wasn’t suitable for modern farming. Dairy cattle and machinery were sold, grazing animals were introduced – fallow deer, piglets, longhorns, Exmoor ponies – to keep the emerging shrub in check. This first step created an ever-changing tapestry of habitats as grazing animals transferred seeds and nutrients across the landscape.

Soon, turtle doves – one of the UK’s fastest declining bird species – were recorded at Knepp for the first time. Then came ravens, then tens of thousands of painted lady butterflies drawn to the area by creeping thistle, then 13 of the UK’s 17 bat species. White storks bred successfully on the land, a first for Britain since 1416. Hundreds of critically endangered species have found a home there since, helped along by Knepp’s river restoration work.

Its nature recovery corridor project will see a 100-mile-long pathway created for wildlife to travel easily through environments. The estate is helping build futures for green-minded youngsters in more than one way, offering work placements and training courses for 16- to 25-year-olds.

Half the battle is “to wait and see what turns up of its own accord,” according to the brains behind Knepp estate’s success. In Kent, the Wilder Blean project takes a similar approach with one added extra: bison. The way they graze, eat bark, fell trees and dust bathe is believed to be of particular help to the emerging habitats around them.

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That’s why in 2022 the animals were transported from Scotland, Ireland and Germany to create a herd in West Blean and Thornden Woods as part of a UK-first experiment establishing if bison really are the “ecosystem engineers” they’re thought to be. Kent Wildlife Trust and Wildwood Trust monitor the bisons’ impact on the ancient woodland, hopeful that letting nature take charge will prove more successful than human management of biodiversity, and compare it to the effect of longhorn cattle elsewhere in the wood.

Experts are hesitant to claim victory too soon, with the project set to run until 2050. But the signs are promising. Since monitoring began, a beetle species previously declared extinct – Lagria stripes – has been recorded on site. Dormice, viviparous lizards and slow worms have increased in number. And bison is a vulnerable species itself, meaning the birth of two calves so far has proven a great win for conservationists.

“There has been renewed energy in the woods,” said Donavan Wright, a bison ranger for Wildwood Trust. “My first impression is that the bisons’ presence is having a cascading effect through the ecosystem and nature is slowly healing.”

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Some rewilding efforts are vital to the communities around them. In Arran, the Community of Arran Seabed Trust (COAST) is fighting for the restoration of its once abundant sea floor.

By 1995, local marine environments were damaged and fish stocks depleted by unsustainable fishing practices. The community, once commercially reliant on the waters, felt the effects – its international sea-angling festival was cancelled after 1994, when catches were down by 96%.

But COAST’s activism saw Scotland’s first No Take Zone established in Lamlash Bay in 2008 – the first initiative of its kind in Scotland – and then the South Arran Marine Protected Area put into law in 2016. The latter allows controlled, sustainable fishing, and the group kept close watch to see if wildlife could bounce back.

It did. King scallop numbers increased by 850%, and dramatic rises were recorded in species of commercial value like lobsters. The seabed itself is recovering too, promising new habitats for more wildlife.

Elsewhere, historic happy accidents are helping rejuvenate modern sea life. After an outbreak of a tissue-eating disease broke out along coral reefs around Florida and the Caribbean, experts were stumped. The disease wasn’t just a concern for marine life, but for those who rely on their local seas for income. But something familiar is proving an unlikely solution: antibiotics.

Coordinated by the TC Reef Fund, divers are smearing antibiotic paste onto affected coral and, while it isn’t always a cure, it allows coral colonies to live long enough to reproduce. These are the same antibiotics handed out by GPs, so scientists are now working to prevent antibiotic resistance on our seabeds.

Hannah Westwater is a freelance journalist.

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Beavers are back in London. For the first time in 400 years, a family of wild beavers are calling the capital their home, nibbling away at trees and building dams in a nature reserve in west London. They didn’t find their way to Greenford accidentally, however. Their presence is a testament to a growing rewilding movement across the UK.

Rewilding can take many different forms, whether reintroducing lost and endangered species, turning over farmland to nature, or reducing the risk of flooding. Its benefits extend beyond the chance of a brief encounter with a beaver – it’s playing a leading role in tackling the climate crisis and boosting biodiversity.

But it can also come up against challenges, with funding often scarce and public attitudes sometimes skeptical.

Where is rewilding happening in the UK?

Rewilding is happening all across the UK, with projects spanning urban centres and rejuvenated countryside.

It’s not just beavers. Free-roaming bison have been reintroduced to Kent, and Caledonian forest is being restored in Scotland to bring new habitats for golden eagles.

At Knepp Wildland in West Sussex, a project has given rise to nightingales and purple emperor butterflies. At Broughton Sanctuary in North Yorkshire, a new initiative has helped reduce flood levels.

Wild beavers were hunted to extinction in London four centuries ago… but thanks to @CitizenZoo, the toothy tree surgeons have returned to the capital once more. 🦫

Senior reporter @GregBarradale gives us a tour of Paradise Fields. 🌿 Read more. 👇https://t.co/HsmgiAX2w5 pic.twitter.com/DjJEg4xhIi

— Big Issue (@BigIssue) May 9, 2024

“As rewilding projects continue to develop, the myriad of benefits provided by rewilding – for nature, wildlife, the climate and people – are becoming more apparent. There is also a huge diversity of approaches and landscapes being rewilded, across hundreds of rewilding projects throughout Britain,” says Rebecca Wrigley, CEO of Rewilding Britain.

Rewilding Britain channels money to projects around the country. It has supported initiatives including a network in Hampshire, studying the possibility of bringing white-tailed eagles back in numbers to Scotland, and restoring 100 miles of coastline across Sussex and Kent.

Communities are getting increasingly involved, too, says Wrigley: “Last year, Trees for Life in the Highlands of Scotland launched the first Rewilding Centre, and the Langholm Initiative completed the largest-ever community buyout of land in southern Scotland, showing how rewilding can bring a community together to restore treasured landscapes and create job opportunities.”

Do farmers get paid to rewild?

Farmers do get paid to rewild – but it’s a complicated and inconsistent web of funding.

Brexit saw money disappear from farmers’ pockets. That was the driving force behind the Environmental Land Management (ELM) programme, announced as the UK’s replacement subsidy for Common Agricultural Policy funding. As well as sustainable farming, the project also supported farmers wishing to give over land to wildness and struggling species, and aimed to reach £800m in funding a year by 2028.

It has not had a smooth path, finding itself imperilled during Liz Truss’s brief reign, and then saved in January 2023. Critics, including the National Farmers Union and parliament’s Public Accounts Committee, have said the rollout of ELM funding has been too slow and included too little detail for farmers to realistically take advantage of.

“New public and private mechanisms for financing rewilding are emerging but the ‘market’ for funding and investment is still confused, fragmented and non-standardised,” says Wrigley. 

“This is restricting rewilding practitioners from accessing the funding they need to upscale rewilding initiatives. It is also limiting private finance from finding large-scale investable propositions. We need increased, diversified and stable financing streams to give both rewilding practitioners and investors the confidence to make long-term, high-integrity investment decisions.”

Without functional central government funding, rewilding lies in the hands of landowners and farmers. Yet crop farmers are looking at a 58% fall in income this year, leaving little spare cash. Jeremy Clarkson, who finds himself as possibly the UK’s best-known farmer since Old McDonald, put the dilemma as such in a column: “Rewilding’s great, if you don’t mind going hungry.”

Other funds are stepping in. In London, the Ealing Beaver Project is part of Sadiq Khan’s Rewild London Fund, which awarded over £1m in 2023 to initiatives including the creation of new wetlands in Alexandra Park and Clapham Common, as well as mink trapping. A pair of funds run by Rewilding Britain – the Innovation and Challenge funds – also invite bids for ambitious projects.

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The green transition doesn’t have to lead to job losses, a new report has urged – but the government must step in to stop gas sector workers falling off a “cliff-edge”.

The UK cannot meet its legally-binding climate targets without shutting down fossil fuel production.

But a just transition demands retraining oil and gas workers into climate-friendly roles, a report from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) has urged.

The right support will mean “minimal career disruption” for the gas sector’s 115,000 workers. But this could turn into major upheaval if the government doesn’t support workers to retrain.

Current plans to support workers have been “piecemeal”, explained Joshua Emden, the report’s lead author.

“A best case scenario is one where you have a clear industrial strategy regarding what kind of technologies we’re going to need in future, and is clear about what the impact will be on workers, and offers proper support for retraining,” he said.

“Worst case scenario is we end up in a cliff-edge scenario for workers. Either we don’t meet those net-zero targets – which would be a disaster for the climate, and would mean higher energy bills – or, in the rush to meet net zero targets, the transition is rapid and disorderly, workers get left behind, and jobs are just lost. We saw that in the 1970s and 1980s with coal mining and de-industrialisation.”

What is the net zero transition?

To meet our net zero targets, the UK will need to reduce the amount of gas it uses by nearly 80% before 2050.

It’s not clear whether the government will meet these goals. Last September, prime minister Rishi Sunak U-turned on several key green policies, pushing back the 2030 deadline for selling new petrol and diesel cars, delaying the phasing out of gas boilers, and pledging to “max out” oil and gas exploration in the North Sea.

Scientists and campaigners slammed the decision. “It’s not pragmatic, it’s pathetic,” said professor Dave Reay, executive director of the University of Edinburgh’s Climate Change Institute. “This rolling back on emissions cuts for short-term political gain will undermine the transition to net zero and with it the future opportunities, prosperity and safety of the entire country.”

But regardless of dangerous Tory delay, the writing should on the wall for dirty energy. Coal provided 40% of our electricity a decade ago – now, we use barely any.

“The writing should be on the wall for upstream oil and gas from a climate and energy security perspective,” said Emden. “[But] we need to work out where these workers go.”

What green jobs could gas workers retrain into?

Moving into a new job is not as unusual as you might think. In 2021, approximately 2% of the working population, or approximately 600,000 workers, found a new job each quarter, the IPPR estimate. A little more than half, or 390,000 workers, moved to new occupations.

So it is possible to find people new jobs. And as the green transition accelerates, there will be plenty of green jobs to go around. The average job vacancies in green industries from 2012-2021 was more than 17 times higher than high-carbon jobs in 2021.

But we need “proper retraining support” if these jobs are going to go to the right places.

“Workers and union need some notice of what is going to happen. We can still do that and still accelerate the transition,” Emden explained.

The report looks at “green occupations” (those specific to green industries) and “blue occupations” (‘climate compatible’ occupations that are not specific to green industries but do not entail high carbon emissions). It finds that 93% of the approximately 115,000 people working in these gas sectors share more than 50% of their existing work tasks – such as inspecting and repairing equipment – with green or blue occupations.

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To move into green occupations, workers will need “significant support.” Only around 5% of workers in gas sectors could move to a green occupation that shares on average 40% or more work tasks with their current role, the report finds.

But moving into ‘blue roles’ – like engineers and technicians – will require less support.

“We’re not suggesting that every worker should move into a green job, specifically, we’re not saying all workers should work in wind turbines or anything like that,” Emden said.

“But there will still be engineers, mechanics, repairs people, required in future, and some of these jobs are related to what workers are already doing. So the transition need not be hugely disruptive in terms of the retraining that might be involved, but we still need the support in place to make sure that that happens.”

The think tank have urged the government to reform the skills system by introducing an annual £1.1bn Green Training Fund to provide free training to workers in gas sectors  that may need to change occupations.

“We’re not quite at the stage yet where we can say, you know, you can go from job A to job B, and it will require this specific training, that’s your pathway,” Emden said.

“We’re not quite at that level of detail yet. But we are at the point where we can point at job roles and say that here are some options that might be available in the future. And here’s how closely related they are to what you’re currently doing. More of that kind of work needs to be done.”

A rotund willow tree is missing a ring of bark, cut out like a belt. Tree stumps stand, gnawed to a point. A path has been worn into the grass by the water’s edge. You will not see the beavers. But if you know where to look, the signs are everywhere

Over the past six months, a family of history-making mammals have made themselves at home in a woodland next to a trading estate in Greenford, West London. These features haven’t been seen in the capital since Shakespeare’s time. That was until October 2023, when four centuries after beavers were hunted to extinction in London, the creatures were reintroduced to the wild.

It was hoped the family – two adults, a juvenile and two children – would increase biodiversity, reduce the risk of flooding and galvanise the community around rewilding efforts. Six months into the landmark project, the Big Issue visited to discover the difference they’re making.

“I think everyone across the project has been surprised how quickly they have got to building across different dams,” says Ben Stockwell, senior urban rewilding officer with Citizen Zoo, who is showing me round the site.

“Beavers have a right to exist here. The only reason they don’t is we hunted them to extinction 400 years ago.”

Within a couple of days of their release, the beavers had set to work, shaping their new home in Paradise Fields. A series of dams, constructed from sticks, branches, and mud, block a stream running down to the lagoon.

The biggest is almost a metre high, deep water massed behind it, and a clear stream trickling through. A volunteer noticed it had sprung a leak one day. When they returned the next morning, the beavers had fixed it.

This is part of the appeal of beavers: their dams mean that when heavy rain falls, waters are held up rather than gushing downstream. As the climate changes, their stewards hope this can form a local, nature-based solution to flooding. New ponds and channels are testament to the transformation.

At the release site, where six months before London mayor Sadiq Khan had released them from their cages, changes are evident. Instead of solid land, a deep, wide channel now leads to the water, ready to fill up when rain falls. Across the woodland, which is ringed by a 1.1 mile fence that volunteers check daily for breaches, there is even new wetland.

How can you tell if beavers have been? Not all logs lying around Paradise Fields are their handiwork – some have been chopped down with chainsaws. The giveaway, says Stockwell, is the 45 degree angle of the cuts.

For signs of their celebrated intelligence, look for ring-barking. If a tree is too big, explains Stockwell, the beavers play the long game. They will nibble out a ring of bark around the tree. In a couple of years, the tree will die, providing wood. 

“Part of me is like, they are the cleverest thing I have ever seen… they definitely do have foresight,” says Stockwell. 

“They do have a level of intelligence where they know how to fell things to their advantage.”

He adds: “They have an insane amount of teamwork between them.”

Visitors during the daytime are unlikely to spot the beavers, shy as they are. But footage from camera traps, shared with the Big Issue, shows the creatures at work. The matriarch of the pack will patrol at night, padding around the nature reserve. The night-camera footage shows the beavers nibbling at trees, adding twigs to their dams, and – seemingly – washing themselves.

Brought down from Scotland, the beavers are settling in well. The five-year project is a partnership between Citizen Zoo, Ealing Wildlife Group, Friends of Horsenden Hill and Ealing Council. Its success rests on a 200-strong army of volunteers, who not only make sure the fence is intact but check camera traps on a daily basis and monitor beaver welfare.

Along with helping the beavers settle in, success is a matter of convincing the community the project is a good idea. Volunteer numbers have increased and tours of the site have sold out, while school assemblies have managed to spark curiosity.

This buy-in matters. Think of rewilding, and you’ll likely think of wolves. But, according to Rewilding Britain, the main reason wolves haven’t been reintroduced to the UK is because society simply isn’t ready. Research in 2022 found the Scottish public was warming up to the idea of Lynx being reintroduced. Attitudes must change – and the beavers can be a part of that.

On a less dramatic scale than wolves, however, nature is slowly reclaiming these rainy isles, with hundreds of projects seeking to remove the UK from the list of the world’s most nature-depleted countries. Free-roaming bison have been reintroduced to Kent, and Caledonian forest is being restored in Scotland to bring new habitats for golden eagles.

In London, the Ealing Beaver Project is part of Sadiq Khan’s Rewild London Fund, which awarded over £1m in 2023 to initiatives including the creation of new wetlands in Alexandra Park and Clapham Common, as well as mink trapping.

“What’s next for the project is to continue monitoring the beavers themselves, making sure they are fit and healthy. But also monitoring the different species we are seeing on site, so we can see how it’s changing over time,” says Stockwell. 

“Long term we want to monitor the water levels on site, so we’re looking at the hydrology levels to see what impact the beavers are making in terms of retaining water, and what that means for reducing flooding downstream.”

There is also, tantalisingly, a sense the beavers might get friends. The way beavers alter the terrain offers a safer place for water voles to live, with more escape options from the mink hunting them. Perhaps one day, Paradise Fields will be home for this rare mammal too.

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Oil and gas giant Shell has unveiled eye-watering ‘better than expected’ profits for the first quarter of this year.

The fossil-fuel company has announced earnings of £6.2bn in Q1. Luckily, it’s putting the money to a good cause: lining shareholder pockets.

According to the Institute for Public Policy Research, Shell spent £11 transferring cash to shareholders through buybacks and dividends for every £1 it spent on renewable energy.

But £6.2bn could make a huge dent in climate action. Here’s how you could put some of this money to a good cause.

Electrify around one fifth of the UK rail network

If the UK is to meet its net zero commitments, it must electrify some 13,000km by 2050 –  around 448km of rail per year.

According to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, It costs around £2m to electrify a kilometre of track. So Shell’s profits could electrify 3,000 km of the UK network.

It wouldn’t finish the job, but it would be a good start: in 2022, just 2.2km of track was electrified.

Put solar panels on 1.13 million British homes

Solar panels can help bring down your bills – by generating energy yourself, you don’t need to rely on the expensive national grid.

The Energy Saving Trust estimates that a typical household with a 3.5 kilowatt-peak system – the average solar system installed by UK houses – can reduce its energy bills by anywhere between £190 and £465 per year.

But high installation costs – roughly £5,500 for the average photo-voltaic system – put many people off. With Shell’s profits, we could rig up such systems for 1.13 million British homes.

Or insulate 480,000 British homes

The UK has some of the least insulated homes in Europe, with 28.6 million homes losing heat up to three times faster than the continent.

Greenmatch estimates that home insulation costs – complete with cavity walls, under floors and roof or loft – are £12,930 for a standard 3-bedroom semi-detached home in the UK. With Shell’s annual profits, you could insulate nearly half a million of our country’s draughty homes.

Remove 1.55 billion kilograms of plastic from the ocean

The ocean is filled with some 200 billion kilograms of plastic debris, with devastating consequences for wildlife. Some 90% of world’s seabirds have plastic in their guts.

Companies like the Ocean Cleanup – which uses tech to cut down on plastic pollution – are endeavouring to put a dent in this massive total. Their feasibility study suggests that a full fleet of 100km of these floating barriers was deployed at a cost of US$372.73m, collecting plastic at around US$5.32 (£4.26) per kilogram.

So Shell’s most recent profit margin could remove 1.55 billion kilograms of the hardy material from the sea.

Build 60 million robo-bees

The world’s bee population is in dramatic decline, as habitat loss, insecticides and changing temperatures take their toll on the vital pollinators.

In the face of this catastrophe, researchers are coming up with novel solutions. Researchers in Japan have built a $100 match-box sized drone that can pick up pollen from one flower and deposit it in another.

You could build 60 million of these drones with Shell’s profits – but it’s worth noting, the money would probably be far better spent on preserving existing bee populations.

Buy 6.8 million Taylor Swift tickets

This isn’t much to do with the planet. But if Shell were feeling particularly benevolent towards Swifties, they could buy 6.8 million fans tickets to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, where seats will set you back an average £870 per head.