Green Fiscal Policy Tools

AUDITING GREEN FISCAL POLICY TOOLS: A STARTER KIT

Governments have begun using “green fiscal policy tools” to address climate change and other environmental challenges. In general, governments leverage fiscal policy to influence behavior through collecting revenue or spending. Green fiscal policy tools include approaches such as providing tax incentives to consumers to install solar panels on their homes or loans to businesses to subsidize more energy-efficient industrial equipment.

As governments implement these new tools, SAIs are being called on to evaluate them. This website serves as a starter kit for SAIs interested in or about to begin an audit of a green fiscal policy tool. We discuss the following tools:

• Fees
• Grants and other financial awards
• Loans
• Public Procurement
• Resource Taxes
• Tax Incentives

Information on each tool includes potential criteria and case studies of recent audits or nonaudit reviews that SAIs have performed.

We expect to update this website with additional case studies. While building this kit, one of the most significant observations we made is how early the auditing community is in assessing national green fiscal policy tools. Collectively, we have done work, but much more is needed to ensure sufficient and effective oversight.

We have identified several common themes across the case studies:

• Government agencies may lack relevant data—particularly about outcomes and impacts.
• Agencies may not sufficiently coordinate among each other or with stakeholders. Agencies may experience challenges with coordination because green fiscal policies may involve agencies that have limited experience working together (e.g., a tax administration agency and a natural resource management agency).
• Not enough planning has occurred, which is particularly critical for new policies and programs.
• Opportunities exist for agencies to establish more effective targets and goals. Properly setting and adjusting goals and targets is especially important for new policies and programs.
• Agencies could further consider how green fiscal policy tools interact with other policies, since green fiscal policy tools do not operate in a vacuum.

These themes are not unique to green fiscal policy tools. To audit green fiscal policy tools, auditors still analyze government data and documents, interview agency officials, and may use surveys and various statistical and economic tools. Specific methodologies vary from audit to audit.

While there is always more to learn, especially about new green fiscal policy tools, auditing principles still apply. And as a community, we are pretty good at learning. 

The deliverables of this project can be explored through the subpages in the navigation on the left.

Green Fiscal Policy Tools Project

In recent years, we have observed an increasing number of different green policies to encourage the development and use of green technologies. We see this on the example of an increased share of renewable energy in the countries’ energy mix, which is often incentivized through both direct and indirect government expenditures. Examples of such green fiscal tools include:

• environmental taxes, charges, and subsidies, including energy taxes and subsidies (for example for renewable energy or for fossil fuels);
• fiscal policies or reforms to raise public revenues (including, for example ‘the plastics own resource in the EU’, that has been in place since 2021 and consists of national contributions based on the amount of non-recycled plastic packaging waste);
• fiscal incentives and financial mechanisms that can leverage private financing for green investments, including issuance of green bonds that are supposed fund projects that have positive environmental and climate impacts;
• promotion of sustainable finance through a common classification system establishing what qualifies for environmentally sustainable activities (e.g. EU taxonomy);
• alignment of government expenditure with environmental goals and enhancing the effectiveness of public spending, or mainstreaming climate in the public budget;
• proposing legislation on energy, plastic, pollution, soil etc. to provide incentives for green investments;
• emission trading system.

Experts have highlighted the need for systematically screening public finance for environmental and climate impacts. There is a high interest on topics like green budgeting, carbon pricing, redirecting private finance to green investments (sustainable finance), green bonds, climate finance, green energy transition or just transition. Being a relatively new topic and an increasingly relevant area, the audit risk is high. Auditors need to enhance their knowledge and understanding of how to assess the effectiveness and impact of green fiscal policy tools on environment and climate. Sharing experience and discussing challenges in a form of regular seminars, can provide valuable insights to the SAIs and the WGEA.

The INTOSAI WGEA first addressed the topic of Market Based Instruments for Environmental Protection and Management in 2016 report. This project aims to build on the previous work, while addressing latest challenges and rapidly changing regulatory frameworks. The main outputs include series of short webinars, recorded podcast as well as reference resources including for instance definitions and descriptions of green fiscal policy tools, relevant criteria, and key questions for auditors. The project could also contribute to a better understanding of the impact of the Green Fiscal Policy Tools on energy costs and prices.

There is a possibility of collaboration with the Green Fiscal Policy Network established by a partnership between UNEP, IMF and GIZ.