Abstract
As 2025 marks the midpoint of the decade, with only five years remaining to meet the 2030 environment and energy targets, the focus has begun to shift from planning to delivery (Figure 1).
The Government’s Clean Power 2030 Action Plan provides a delivery pathway to fully decarbonise the power sector by 2030, setting out reforms to accelerate consenting, streamline project timelines, and strengthen grid connections. The Crown Estate (TCE) estimates that 20–30 GW of new seabed rights in England and Wales will need to be brought to market by 2030 for delivery out to 2040. Key opportunity regions include the Celtic Sea, with up to 12 GW of potential capacity, and the North East, where up to 16 GW could be realised through new leases by 2030. These ambitions are supported by TCE’s Marine Delivery Routemap, a long-term spatial strategy that integrates digital seabed mapping, scenario planning, and stakeholder engagement to deliver a thriving marine economy that aligns clean energy deployment with nature recovery and economic development. The policy and legislative landscape for offshore wind has evolved rapidly, reflecting commitments to accelerate clean energy deployment, strengthen energy security, and reform planning and consenting systems. However, market pressures and increased delivery risks present significant challenges. These setbacks underline the urgent need for regulatory reform and more holistic solutions that integrate planning, consenting, supply chain resilience, financing mechanisms, and environmental responsibilities to keep projects viable and on track to contribute to net zero.
The UK Energy Act 2023 represents the most comprehensive package of energy legislation in over a decade. It establishes a statutory framework to accelerate offshore wind consenting while strengthening environmental protection, recognising that fragmented, project-by-project compensation is insufficient to address cumulative impacts on habitats and species. The Act introduces provisions for offshore wind strategic compensation, enabling measures to be coordinated and delivered at scale. Building on this, Defra and the Scottish Government consulted in 2025 on offshore wind Environmental Compensatory Measures Reforms, seeking to broaden the scope of compensatory measures to deliver ecologically effective outcomes across the protected site network. The Marine Recovery Fund (MRF), due to launch in autumn 2025, will provide a voluntary, offshore wind industry-funded mechanism to support strategic compensation, reducing duplication, speeding up decision-making, and targeting investment towards measures with the greatest ecological benefit.
The Planning and Infrastructure Bill, currently in Parliament, seeks to fast-track critical infrastructure decisions and embed mechanisms such as the Nature Restoration Fund to pool resources for conservation and environmental improvement. Together with reforms to the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIP) system, these measures are intended to accelerate delivery while embedding nature recovery into clean energy expansion.
Updates to Part One of the UK Marine Strategy (UKMS) in 2025 confirmed that Good Environmental Status (GES) has been achieved for only two of fifteen indicators, a decline from four in 2019. This trajectory signals the need for significant reform of the UKMS. At the same time, it presents an opportunity to position GES as a unifying framework, linking monitoring, compensation, Marine Net Gain (MNG), and restoration efforts.
The Scottish Biodiversity Strategy to 2045 sets a long-term ambition to restore and regenerate biodiversity across our land, freshwater and seas. The Strategic Framework for Biodiversity includes rolling 6-yearly rolling delivery plans along with statutory targets for nature restoration which will provide a credible pathway to achieving the outcomes of the Scottish Biodiversity Strategy. The proposed Marine and Coastal Restoration Plan will help to deliver and support these vision and outcomes. In parallel, TCE published the first update to its Nature Recovery Ambition in January 2025, outlining accountable actions to double the area leased for marine and coastal nature recovery by 2030 and to embed nature priorities into the Marine Delivery Routemap.
Taken together, these reforms highlight both the ambition and the challenges of delivering a rapid offshore wind build-out in a way that is resilient, environmentally responsible, and socially beneficial. Achieving this balance will require coordinated action across government, regulators, industry, and academia. Research will be needed across multiple fronts, including strengthening ecosystem baselines, understanding cumulative and climate-driven impacts, and reducing uncertainties around ecological functions, food webs, and fisheries interactions. Robust evidence is essential to inform mitigation and compensation measures, support UKMS targets and MNG frameworks, and improve monitoring efficiency through innovative methods. Addressing these priorities will enable confident consenting decisions, de-risk development, and guide strategic marine planning, with programmes such as ECOWind and ECOFlow central to generating the knowledge needed to shape policy, practice, and long-term restoration outcomes.