Green industry calls for new funding model in Budget
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Developers and councils should be able to finance environmental improvements by borrowing against future tax revenues, industry figures have said
A report from the Environmental Industries Commission, which represents the UK’s environmental technology and services industry, says current fiscal policy risks missing out on a $3 trillion global environmental market.
The EIC is calling for the government to introduce a new environmental tax increment financing model in the Budget, which will be unveiled on 24 March, to finance green infrastructure including energy efficient retrofitting of low-income family homes and building low-carbon social and affordable homes on brownfield land.
It also says the Carbon Reduction Commitment energy efficiency scheme should increase in its ambition to cover organisations that use more than 3,000 megawatt hours of electricity every year, rather than the current threshold of 6,000 MwH. This would mean more housing associations and local authorities would be required to join the cap-and-trade carbon emissions scheme.
The report criticises the government’s ‘narrow understanding of the economic opportunities of environmental protection’. It says focusing solely on climate change ignores other important environmental issues such as water, air quality, land contamination and soil quality and the efficient use of resources.
Danny Stevens, EIC policy director, said: ‘By reforming fiscal measures to put a price on pollution and better reward environmentally sustainable behaviour, at the same time as facilitating innovative funding mechanisms such as tax increment financing, the government can provide much needed support to the UK’s high-growth environmental industries.’
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