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Impact assessments for the Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) in Scotland have been updated to reflect the most recent set of regulations passed by the Scottish Parliament. The impact assessments will be updated again once Defra have confirmed the final design of their scheme.

The Scottish National Investment Bank (the Bank) is extensively engaged in work to understand the market gaps and areas of opportunity in the offshore wind supply chain.

Details of each of the Bank’s investments are published online in the Bank’s portfolio webpage. This webpage provides a breakdown of the Bank’s investments by primary mission and also provides further details on each investment such as listing any co-investors and a summary of what the investment will achieve.

The Bank has, to date, made investment commitments of £463.2 million across 29 investments. As the Bank’s Impact Report 2023 sets out, from launch to 31 December 2022 these investments have generated approximately 1.8 GWh of renewable energy, powering the equivalent of 472 homes in a year.

The Bank has concluded a number of offshore wind supply chain investments.

The £35m investment into the Port of Aberdeen (concluded in January 2022) to support the development of the new South Harbour facility. This expansion will provide greater land and water access for offshore wind developers, playing a vital role in the ScotWind supply chain.

The £50m investment into North Star Renewables (concluded in December 2022), as part of a wider £140m finance facility, to build service operation vessels. These vessels are critical in supporting the installation, operation and maintenance of wind farms as they increase in size and distance from shore.

Furthermore the Bank’s £6.6m investment in Verlume (concluded in April 2023) demonstrates the importance of innovative technology in supporting offshore wind developments. Verlume uses intelligent energy management to deliver a constant output of power from renewable sources and minimises energy loss from electricity generated from offshore wind.

The Scottish Government has discussions regarding the draft Climate Change Plan regularly and when required. Cabinet meets weekly and discusses climate change and net zero matters on a regular basis; for example it discussed the draft Climate Change Plan on 7 November 2023. The Cabinet Sub-Committee on Climate Emergency discussed the draft Climate Change Plan on 6 December 2022, 31 January 2023, 14 March 2023 and on 20 June 2023. The cross-party and stakeholder Climate Change Plan Advisory Group which centres on the development of the Climate Change Plan met on 23 February 2023, 23 March 2023, 18 May 2023, 29 June 2023, 31 August 2023 and 5 October 2023. The draft Climate Change Plan has also been discussed between the Deputy First Minister and with members of the Scottish Green Party Parliamentary Group at their liaison meetings on 2 February 2023, 19 July 2023, 28 September 2023 and 23 November 2023.

The Scottish Government is aware that the European Council has announced that it has reached provisional agreement with the European Parliament on a regulation establishing a framework to ensure a secure and sustainable supply of critical raw materials.

The provisional agreement sets a benchmark for recycling to at least 25% of EU’s annual consumption of raw materials and proposes an increase on the recovery of raw materials present in waste. The Scottish Government will assess this new regulation in detail, once the final text is agreed by the EU institutions and adopted, against our policy to align with EU where it is possible for Scotland to do so and such alignment is meaningful in protecting and advancing high standards.

The impact assessments to inform proposals to introduce a charge on single-use disposable beverage cups are currently being developed, in partnership with Zero Waste Scotland, and will be published alongside the public consultation in due course.

The next Scottish National Adaptation Plan (SNAP3) responds to the risks identified by the 2022 UK Climate Change Risk Assessment . This Assessment identified 61 risk and opportunities. The Scottish Government has assigned Director-level owners for all identified climate risks. The overall development of SNAP3 is overseen within Scottish Government by the Director-level Global Climate Emergency Programme Board.

In its November 2023 independent assessment of progress on climate adaptation, the Climate Change Committee (CCC) outlined the need for private investment, alongside public funding, to support adaptation action. Barriers limiting private investment to date have been identified by the CCC in its report from February 2023, titled Investment for a well-adapted UK , and include:

Since 2008 the Scottish Government has made available capital funding of £42 million per year to enable local authorities to invest in flood protection measures. Currently 80% of the available £42 million is allocated to prioritised flood schemes and the other 20% is allocated between all 32 councils to introduce, upgrade and maintain other flood resilience measures set out in Local Flood Risk Management Plans.

The 2020 Programme for Government committed an additional £150 million over the course of this Parliament for flood risk management actions, which is being allocated on an annual basis to support the delivery of flood resilience actions.

Scotland’s water environment is one of our most important national assets. The Scottish Government sets out it’s objectives and action programmes for protecting and improving Scotland's water environment in the River Basin Management Plan (RBMP), which the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) produces on our behalf every six years (currently covering 2021-2027). Each year the Scottish Government provides SEPA with a grant from the Water Environment Fund (WEF) to support their work to deliver the RBMP. WEF is targeted on projects which will derive the greatest benefit to Scotland’s rivers and neighbouring communities and is currently focussed on projects which restore rivers and improve fish migration.

Some projects to remove Invasive Non-Native Species (INNS) were previously funded under WEF. However, in recent years funding for INNS projects has been provided through other funding streams such as The Scottish Invasive Species Initiative (SISI) (total £3.24 million); The Tweed Invasives Project (£100,000); NatureScot’s Biodiversity Challenge Fund; The Scottish Rural Development Programme’s (SRDP) Agri-Environment Climate Scheme (AECS) (2020-2022 £20,392) and the Forestry Grant Scheme (£730,000 to date). Prioritising funding in this way enables more effective use of resources and greater benefits for biodiversity.

The Scottish Government microplastics monitoring programme began in 2013, and has undertaken annual surveys since that time. There have been nearly 400 locations sampled between 2013 and 2023. Microplastics are present in the surface waters of all Scottish Marine Regions, although have not been found to be present at all sample sites. Scottish Marine Regions next to the most urbanised and industrialised areas of the country have been shown to have higher concentrations of microplastics. Annual surveys continue to gather data, in order to work toward determining a baseline and / or trends.

Sea-floor litter data is collected during Scottish Government fish surveys which sample Scottish waters. There is now over 10 years of data, from 2012 onwards, which is used nationally and internationally as part of wider efforts to monitor changes in marine litter levels. There is evidence of an apparent decrease in litter density over time for some areas of Scotland’s seas.

The density and type of litter found on Scotland’s beaches has been recorded by the Marine Conservation Society since 1993. This data has been used by the Scottish Government to produce the Scottish Beach Litter Performance Indicators. Beach litter loadings have been calculated for five sub-regions around the Scottish coastline. The amounts of litter found in the five sub-regions show a variety of trends, dependent on the litter type and location.

Information on these monitoring programmes has been published in Scotland’s Marine Assessment 2020 and can be found at https://marine.gov.scot/sma/assessment-theme/marine-litter