Green Taxation And Environmental Sustainability
As part of a broader policy mix, green taxation initiatives at both EU and Member State level can help us to reach our environmental policy goals by encouraging a switch to cleaner energy, more sustainable industry and greener habits. By setting a price for social costs, altering decision-making and incentivising behavioural changes by companies and people, this action can help mitigate resource waste and damage to the environment.
Green taxation and environmental sustainability
The transition towards climate neutrality requires deep societal change. In that sense, green taxation must fit into a wider policy context that integrates a broad range of instruments, such as pricing instruments, subsidies, standards and investment in public infrastructure. National environmental taxes could also address specific environmental issues in each individual Member State.
That said, to ensure social fairness, the effect of green taxation should be most felt by the social actors that consume the most. It should also be matched with support for the most vulnerable and infrastructure investments, such as public transport.
This includes revising minimum rates for fuels and re-thinking tax exemptions that imply de facto subsidies for certain fossil fuels and certain economic sectors. The aim is to shape energy taxation in a way that encourages both businesses and consumers to behave in a more environmentally-friendly way.
By passing Green CHIPS, New York has shown that we are ready to do our part to address the national semiconductor chip shortage, and that we can balance economic opportunity with environmental sustainability.
Abstract:Disasters and pandemics such as COVID-19 will change the world in many ways and the road to redemption from the ongoing economic distress may require a novel approach. This paper proposes a path towards economic recovery that keeps sustainability at the forefront. A computable general equilibrium model is used to simulate different green tax reform (GTR) policies for triple dividend (TD), consisting of lower emissions, higher GDP and higher employment. The GTR design consists of an energy tax coupled with one of three tax revenue recycle methods: (i) reduction of payroll tax, (ii) reduction of goods and services tax (GST) and (iii) a mixed-recycling approach. The paper also presents the impact of higher productivity on the tax reform simulations, which is a possible positive externality of lower emissions. The study is based on the Australian economy and the salient findings are twofold: (i) productivity gain in the GTR context improves the GDP and employment outcomes in all three different simulation scenarios and (ii) GST reduction has the highest TD potential, followed by reduction of payroll tax.Keywords: green tax reform; CGE modelling; triple dividend; energy tax; positive externalityJEL Classifications:H23; C68; O44; Q48; D62
Climate change and environmental degradation are an existential threat to the European Union and to the world. To overcome these challenges, the European Green Deal is Europe's new growth strategy, which will transform the Union into a modern, resource-efficient and competitive economy. The European Green Deal aims to make Europe climate neutral by 2050, boost the economy through green technology, create sustainable industry and transport, and cut pollution. Turning climate and environmental challenges into opportunities will make the transition just and inclusive for all.
We are a key collaborator in the environmental, societal and governance (ESG) ecosystem, collaborating with leading academic, policy, business, governmental organizations, and industry specialists to invest in field-leading thought leadership, research, and solutions to guide you on your sustainability journey.
Vermont Law School's Environmental Tax Policy Institute analyzes the ways in which taxation can be used to address environmental problems. By serving as a resource for the public and private sectors, non-governmental organizations, the press and academia, the Institute seeks to better inform the public policy debate about the role of environmental taxes at the local, state and federal levels.
Over the past 20 years, the Global Conferences on Environmental Taxation have become a useful and important meeting place for experts and scholars from all parts of the world who are interested in experiences and insights relating to environmental taxation and other market-based instruments. The Environmental Tax Policy Institute frequently is a supporting partner of the annual conference and it hosted the 3rd Global Conference on Environmental Taxation in 2002. The Institute's Director, Professor Janet Milne, is a member of the steering committee for the conference series.
This two-volume book, published in 2017, assembles key articles written by experts around the world that explore how the law shapes the design and use of environmental taxation. Edited by the Environmental Tax Policy Institute, Director, Janet Milne, it serves as an important resource for people who work with environmental taxation and want to have seminal resources readily available on their bookshelf.
Published in 2013, the Handbook provides an interdisciplinary, international tour of the key areas of research on environmental taxation. Edited by Janet E. Milne (the Director of the Environmental Tax Policy Institute) and Mikael Skou Andersen, the Handbook contains chapters written by 36 environmental tax specialists from 16 countries.Click here for more information.
Promoting green business practices could also encourage other companies in your community to follow your lead, perhaps by recycling or cutting back on waste. While the priority is making money, taking small steps to be environmentally sustainable can have a positive impact on a local and global scale.
An eco-friendly approachDay-to-day decisions about energy conservation and the use of water can impact the environment in your community and contribute to greater global environmental sustainability. If you use vehicles to receive shipments or deliver orders, are they eco-friendly? If you are manufacturing home goods, are they sustainable, compostable, biodegradable, recycled or recyclable?
These green investments need to be enabled and supported through targeted public expenditure, policy reforms and changes in taxation and regulation. UN Environment promotes a development path that understands natural capital as a critical economic asset and a source of public benefits, especially for poor people whose livelihoods depend on natural resources. The notion of green economy does not replace sustainable development, but creates a new focus on the economy, investment, capital and infrastructure, employment and skills and positive social and environmental outcomes across Asia and the Pacific.
Through the Green Cincinnati Plan, the city has outlined many goals to create and support green jobs in renewable energy, energy efficiency, transportation, the public sector, corporate sustainability, and beyond.
The tax department has a particularly critical role in delivering value for the organization in four key areas of developing and implementing environmental sustainability strategy: funding initiatives through grants, credits, and discretionary incentives; understanding how to unlock value in indirect tax, property tax, and excise tax; identifying value chain opportunities; and evaluating M&A through a sustainable business value lens.
Tax leaders can provide much-needed guidance on a range of strategically important questions, including how to claim and utilize grants, credits, and discretionary incentives to fund sustainability initiatives. Environmental sustainability grants, credits, and discretionary incentives may be triggered by a wide array of activities and investments, including adjusting operations to focus on or increase carbon sequestration, reduction of emissions, and decarbonization; investments in renewable energy, energy storage, and efficiency; alternative fuels; electric and autonomous vehicles, including infrastructure; green technology solutions, and recycling initiatives.
The tax team can identify areas of sales tax benefits through a reverse audit analyzing environmental sustainability expenditures, potentially leading to tax refunds. The team can also navigate planning and risk issues around sales and use taxes.
These two collections of essays on different aspects of environmental taxation are the latest in a series of edited collections on the topic. The Milne and Andersen Handbook, as the title suggests, is more substantial, not only in length and wide-ranging coverage, but also in the depth of experience and recognition of its authors. The editors of both books are primarily academic lawyers, with Milne of the Vermont Law School as an editor of both volumes, although Andersen is an expert in political science and policy analysis and Kreiser is an academic accountant, who has edited several of the earlier volumes.
The Handbook is just what one might expect as a practical guide for tax experts and policy makers. It covers the topic from its conceptualisation in economic theory to the application to actual economies, the expected effects of the taxation and finally to ex post assessments of its implementation. Many interesting issues are covered in detail in 26 chapters: environmental fiscal reform; the legal authority for such taxation; the earmarking of revenues; special problems of developing countries; effects on inequality; the politics of such taxation (both national and international); the double dividend debate; transactions costs; the databases available; the decoupling of economic growth and degradation of the environment, inducing technological change; effects on sectoral and national competitiveness; the policy mix, especially the mix of regulation and taxation; and the role of bounded rationality. It excludes a detailed treatment of the reduction of environmentally damaging subsidies (e.g. on fossil fuels), but it does consider "tax expenditure", i.e. subsidies via exemptions or allowances in the tax system (e.g. to incentivise renewable sources of power). 041b061a72