Produced by multinational professional services and law firm Pinsent Masons, the analysis reveals that £41bn was collected in so-called ‘green taxes’ during the last financial year.
As well as looking at green ‘sticks’, the analysis assesses green ‘carrots’, charting tax breaks designed to incentivise more environmentally friendly actions such as switching to electric vehicles and installing renewable electricity generation capacity.
Also known as the ‘super deduction’ scheme, the tax break allows companies to deduct 130% of the cost of qualifying investments from their taxable profits.
Criticism is coming from MPs as well as green groups; a recent report from the Public Accounts Committee stated that the Government has a “very limited view of the role of tax” in delivering climate targets – both by incentivising low-carbon processes and technologies and making high-carbon behaviour from businesses and individuals more expensive.