Environment (Principles, Governance and Biodiversity Targets) (Wales) Act 2026

6 Environmental principles and integrating environmental protection statement

(1) The Welsh Ministers must prepar‍e a document (“environmental principles and integrating environmental protection statement”) explaining—

(a) how they consider the environmental principles should be interpreted;

(b) how they propose to comply with the duty in section 3(1);

(c) how they propose to determine, for the purpose of section 3(4), whether a policy would have no effect or a negligible effect on the environment;

(d) how the environmental principles relate to each other and to the duty in section 3(1)(b);

(e) how the environmental principles and the duty in section 3(1)(b) relate to the environmental objective;

(f) how the duties in section 3(1), section 5(1) and article 4A(1) of the Natural Resources Body for Wales (Establishment) Order 2012 relate to each other;

(g) how the duty in section 3(1) relates to other powers and duties;

(h) how they propose to demonstrate compliance with the duty in section 3(1).

(2) The statement must include guidance to Natural Resources Wales about—

(a) how to comply with the duty in article 4A(1) of the Natural Resources Body for Wales (Establishment) Order 2012 and how to do so in a way that gives effect to its general purpose in article 4 of that Order;

(b) how the environmental principles relate to each other and to the duty in article 4A(1)(b) of the Order;

(c) how the duty in article 4A(1) of the Order relates to other powers and duties.

(3) The statement must also include guidance to public authorities about—

(a) how to comply with the duty in section 5(1);

(b) how the environmental principles relate to each other and to the duty in section 5(1)(b);

(c) how the environmental principles and the duty in section 5(1)(b) relate to the environmental objective;

(d) how the duty in section 5(1) relates to other powers and duties.

(4) The statement may also include any other matters the Welsh Ministers consider appropriate.‍