Economic instruments for biodiversity

The Dutch Taskforce on Biodiversity and Natural Resources has set up an Economic Instruments workgroup to assess how the recommendations of the TEEB report can be worked up into concrete Dutch policy measures. Based on that report and internal discussions, the workgroup has selected a series of issues for further study and elaboration. For these issues CE Delft was asked to design policy proposals that are both practicable and lead to better protection of biodiversity, not only in the Netherlands, but also by reducing the ecological footprint of Dutch consumption patterns in other countries.

The following proposals have been investigated and/or elaborated in policy terms:

• lowering the social discount rate
• further greening of the tax system
• an import charge on bulk commodities
• a tax on non-sustainable timber
• a tax on development of greenfield sites
• a differentiated tax on animal protein
• a review of incentive schemes for biomass projects