The UK is developing its own disclosure requirements and reporting frameworks for sustainability-related disclosures. The Sustainability Disclosure Requirements (SDR) and Sustainability Reporting Standards (SRS) are closely linked and serve as crucial components of the UK's approach to transparent sustainability reporting. The SDR sets the overall framework of topics on which companies need to disclose sustainability-related information, including corporate sustainability risks and impacts. The SRS, once they are developed, are expected to set more specific reporting standards and guidelines that companies must follow to comply with SDR requirements, ensuring that disclosures are consistent and comparable between entities and across industries. SRS will be based on the standards developed by the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB). So far, ISSB has published two standards:

• IFRS S1: General Requirements for Disclosure of Sustainability-related Financial Information

• IFRS S2: Climate-related Disclosures

The UK Government has developed an adaptation of the two standards to the UK context and launched public consultations on the drafts, open until mid-September 2025. Following the consultations, the Government plans to publish the standards by the end of 2025 and to encourage companies to use them voluntarily. The Government is yet undecided on whether to make the standards mandatory, and if so, which sectors will be required to follow them.

The UK does not have a direct equivalent to the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD). While the UK government acknowledges the importance of sustainability, it has opted not to directly replicate the CSDDD in UK law so far. Therefore, diligence obligations are mainly contained in the Modern Slavery Act 2015.

Under section 54 of the UK Modern Slavery Act, companies supplying goods or services to the UK with an annual turnover of GBP 36 million or above must submit an annual modern slavery statement. The Act also has an extraterritorial effect and applies to foreign entities with operations in the UK. The Act recommends companies cover the following 6 areas in their statement:

• Organisation structure and supply chains

• Policies in relation to slavery and human trafficking

• Due diligence processes

• Risk assessment and management

• Key performance indicators to measure the effectiveness of steps being taken

• Training on modern slavery and trafficking

In each of these six areas, companies are expected to demonstrate year-on-year progress and outline specific measures they have taken to mitigate modern slavery risks in their own operations and their value chains.

The statement must be published on a company website. It is recommended that companies submit the statements for publication via the Government modern slavery statement registry, an online resource designed to aggregate corporate statements and make them readily available to stakeholders and other interested parties. So far, over 32,000 organisations from 47 jurisdictions have registered with the resource, providing over 19,000 unique statements.

At the same time, there is no statutory requirement for external verification or audit of the contents, any certification or assurance by a third party, or other forms of independent oversight.

In November 2023, a proposal to introduce overarching environmental and social due diligence requirements was initiated in the House of Lords under the proposed Commercial Organisations and Public Authorities Duty (Human Rights and Environment) Bill.  Baroness Young of Hornsey, who initiated the bill, explained that the idea behind it was to make sure that the UK keeps up with other jurisdictions, including the EU with its CSDDD, and ensures that human rights and environmental due diligence standards are in line with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.  The bill did not progress beyond the second reading in the House of Lords, and there is currently no future stage scheduled for this bill in the UK legislative process.

The EU Whistleblower Protection Directive was not retained in UK law after Brexit. The UK government confirmed it would not transpose the Directive into UK law following the end of the Brexit transition period. Instead, whistleblower protection is enacted via national legislation. Currently, whistleblowers and their protection are mostly covered under the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 (PIDA). This regulation protects workers from detriment or dismissal when they make a "protected disclosure" and concerns disclosures regarding criminal offences (this may include, for example, types of financial impropriety such as fraud), failure to comply with an obligation set out in law, miscarriages of justice, endangering of someone’s health and safety, damage to the environment, and covering up wrongdoing in the above categories

It also requires that to qualify as protected disclosures, they must be made ‘in the public interest’, i.e. the reported wrongdoings must affect others, not only the reporting person, therefore, cases of bullying, harassment, and discrimination must be reported under a different procedure, usually, as prescribed by the employer’s grievance policy.

Disclosures can be made internally (e.g., to the employer), to regulators, or in limited cases to the media. However, the UK Government warns that when concerns are reported to the media, “in most cases [reporting persons will] lose [their] whistleblowing law rights”.

PIDA protects employees, agency workers, trainees, and members of Limited Liability Partnerships (LLPs). At the same time, other categories do not enjoy the same level of protection. These include self-employed people, volunteers, and job applicants.

The Workers (Predictable Terms and Conditions) Act received Royal Assent on 18 September 2023, but no commencement regulations have been made, and the UK Government has confirmed it will not bring the Act into force. This law was still based on the EU Directive on Transparent and Predictable Working Conditions (a legacy from the time that the UK was a EU member state) and aimed to ensure that all workers, including workers on so-called ‘zero-hour contracts,’ would be legally entitled to request a predictable working pattern from their employers.

Currently, it is expected that the provisions it would have introduced, such as giving workers (including agency workers) the right to request a more predictable working pattern, will be partially covered by the upcoming Employment Rights Bill.

The construction industry has long relied on zero-hour contracts, primarily because they offer the flexibility to respond to the unpredictable nature of project workloads. On sites where the volume of work can vary significantly, these contracts allow employers to adjust labour levels as needed. However, while they offer adaptability, zero-hour contracts have also drawn criticism for creating uncertainty for workers and being open to misuse by a small number of unethical employers. Public concern has grown in recent years, fuelled by increasing awareness of who is most impacted by such arrangements. Research suggests that women and individuals from minority backgrounds are disproportionately represented among those working under zero-hour contracts, raising questions about fairness and equity in the labour market.

Minimum wages in the UK are currently regulated via the National Minimum Wage Act 1998. The minimum hourly rates are updated annually, effective from 1 April each year. As of 2025, the following rates apply: GBP 12.21 (for workers aged 21 and over), GBP 10 (for workers aged 18 to 20), GBP 7.55 (for workers aged under 18), and GBP 7.55 (apprentice rate).

Workers are also entitled to the correct minimum wage if they’re part-time, casual labourers (for example, someone hired for one day), agency workers, workers and homeworkers paid by the number of items they make, apprentices, trainees or workers on probation, disabled workers, agricultural workers, foreign workers, seafarers, offshore workers, and non-family members living in the employer’s home who share in the work and leisure activities and are treated as one of the family, for example au pairs.

Some types of workers are exempt from the minimum wage requirements. Examples include self-employed people running their own businesses, company directors, people who are volunteers or voluntary workers, workers on a government employment programme, members of the armed forces, family members of the employer living in the employer’s home, workers younger than school-leaving age, prisoners, and people living and working in a religious community.

Unlike the EU, which envisages adequacy assessments, for example, using indicative reference values like 60% of the median or 50% of the average wage and action plans where collective-bargaining coverage is below 80%, the UK's minimum wages legislation does not contain such requirements.

The original Posted Workers Directive has never been transposed into UK law, as it was decided that UK legislation already covered all its provisions.

The updated EU Posted Workers Directive of 2018 was implemented in the UK via the Posted Workers (Agency Workers) Regulations 2020. Post-Brexit, these regulations were formally revoked on 31 December 2023 via the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 revocation schedule. The UK Government explained the revocation by stating that the concept of the posted worker no longer applied to the UK following its withdrawal from the EU. Therefore, currently, there is no direct equivalent regime for “posted agency workers” in the UK. Instead, agency workers are subject to the Agency Workers Regulations 2010, which requires that they “shall be entitled to the same basic working and employment conditions as [they] would be entitled to for doing the same job had [they] been recruited by the hirer”. These conditions include pay, the duration of working time, night work, rest periods, rest breaks, and annual leave.

UK regulations largely reflect the EU Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) from 2010 and its 2018 update. The fourth version of the EPBD does not apply in the UK post-Brexit. However, many provisions and requirements similar to EPBD IV are contained in the proposed UK Future Homes and Buildings Standards (FHBS), regulated by Part L (Conservation of fuel and power) of the UK Building Regulations.

The new version of the FHBS was open to public consultations from 13 December 2023 to 27 March 2024, with an expectation that the Government would finalise and publish the consolidated version in the Autumn of 2025. As of August 2025, no specific publication date has been announced. It is also unclear when the new standards may come into force.

The initial FHBS proposal envisaged reducing GHG emissions from commercial and residential buildings by 75-80% compared to the current UK regulation requirements. The target was to be achieved through a set of measures, including the use of more advanced construction materials, better insulation (better walls, floors, roofs, triple glazing and improved thermal bridging), heat pumps, solar panel installations, and the prohibition of gas boilers. For residential buildings, the UK government is also separately developing the new Home Energy Model (HEM), designed to replace the current Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP) for the energy rating of new houses.

At the same time, the FHBS does not cover a range of essential climate and energy issues in the construction sector, including embodied carbon, the carbon emissions generated from the production and transportation of building materials, the construction process and maintenance of a building.

The proposed FHBS aims to ensure that all new residential and non-residential (commercial and public) buildings are ‘zero-carbon ready’. According to the UK Government, this means that such buildings will not require any additional modifications to become net-zero when the country’s electricity grid becomes fully decarbonised. At the same time, experts have criticised the standards. One of the key points of concern is the lack of an official benchmark of what constitutes a net-zero building, resulting in ongoing claims by building owners and operators, often well-meant but in many cases not fully justified. This situation creates ambiguity and undermines Britain’s climate ambitions in the building sector.

The EU Waste Framework Directive (WFD) is implemented in the UK through a set of domestic regulations in each nation (England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland), and most of that framework still applies post-Brexit:

• England & Wales: The Waste (England and Wales) Regulations 2011, as amended (notably in 2014 and by the Waste (Circular Economy) (Amendment) Regulations 2020). These transpose the WFD’s waste hierarchy, separate collection duties and planning requirements. In addition, in Wales, the Separate Collection of Waste Materials for Recycling – A Code of Practice for Wales has been developed for non-domestic premises, including construction sites.

• Scotland: The Waste (Scotland) Regulations 2012 (envisaging the duty of care obligations for business waste, including construction and demolition.

• Northern Ireland: The Waste Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2011 (later updated by the Waste (Circular Economy) (Amendment) Regulations (NI) 2020).

Currently, all business waste (including from construction and demolition) must be classified into hazardous or non-hazardous before it is collected, disposed of or recovered. Asbestos and most insulation materials, treated wood, glass, plastic (alone or in mixtures) containing hazardous substances, coal tar and tarred products and bituminous mixtures containing coal tar, soil, stones, and dredging spoils containing hazardous substances, unused or unset cement, and some paints, paint or varnish removers, and adhesives are considered to be hazardous.  Untreated wood, uncontaminated glass, plastic (excluding packaging waste), concrete, bricks, tiles and ceramics, as well as most metals, are considered to be non-hazardous.

The 70% recovery-by-weight target for non-hazardous construction and demolition waste by 2020 required by the WFD applied to the UK while it was an EU Member State and through the transition until the end of 2020. However, it was not retained. At the same time, the UK’s constituent nations are still demonstrating high recovery rates from non-hazardous construction and demolition waste. For example, as of 2022, England reported 94.3%.

The UK is a progressive jurisdiction in terms of how it treats biodiversity issues in the construction sector. According to the Schedule 7A of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (as inserted by Schedule 14 of the Environment Act 2021), developers must “try to avoid loss of habitat when doing development work [and] deliver at least 10% Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG), either on-site or off-site, or as a last resort by buying statutory biodiversity credits”. Developers are required to develop a BNG plan. The plan is the statutory document submitted after planning permission to a local planning authority that demonstrates how a development will deliver at least 10 % biodiversity net gain, including completed metric calculations, habitat maps, compensation for irreplaceable habitats or off‑site units, proof of credits if used, and a management/monitoring plan. It must be approved by the authority (within 8 weeks) before development can commence.

The requirements concerning biodiversity net gain are mandatory for the new developments after 12 February 2024 and apply to: developers of major developments, developers of small sites, developers of nationally significant infrastructure projects from May 2026, land managers wanting to sell in the BNG market, and local planning authorities (LPAs).

At the same time, a number of exemptions are envisaged. Thus, the requirements do not to apply to projects that secured permissions before the regulation entered into force in February 2024, amendments to the planning permissions, small developments (impacting under 25 square metres of on-site habitat or 5 metres of on-site linear habitats such as hedgerows), householder applications (e.g. small projects like home extensions, conservatories or loft conversions), self-build and custom build applications (less than nine dwellings and an area not exceeding 0.5 hectares), and construction related to high speed rail transport network.