Ökologische Umstellungen in der industriellen Produktion

34
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Economic control instruments
After over 25 years of experience with
regulatory instruments, the limits of their
cffcctiveness for environmental safety and
em·ironmental development ai·e clear.
Since the beginning of the nineties at the
latest, it has been recognized that market
instruments prevail alongside othertypes of
instruments. Therefore a mixed use of
instruments offers perspectives forthe future.
lt is a matter of adapting the market
instruments to the existing regulatory
instruments.
Subsidies and tax concessions or benefits
have long be considered the central
instrument for using positive incentives to
achieve desirablc ecological behaviour.
Environmentally-friendly behaviour was
rewarded.
The German Council has considerable
reservations about tax concessions and
subsidies for environment improvement
measures, since these eventually lead to a
redistribution of funds to the advantage of
environmentally-damaging production
processes and products. Direct damage to
the environemnt is reduced, but false price
signals are sent.
Subsidizing environmental innovations can
achieve positive effects through promoting
R+D-projects. Attempts are made to
accelerate research in certain problem areas
of company-orientated environmental
protection by pi Jot projects and thus to create
model solutions.
The basic idea of charges and certificates is
to charge polluters with any costs that arise
for society through their use o f the
environment (e.g. as receptor media for
pollutants) or could arise of damage. Since,
however, the actual costs cannot be
deterrnined due to the complexity of
ecological relationships and thus "true
ecological prices" cannot beset, theeconomic
instrurnents should be used to achieve
politically regulated Standards. In
e nvironmental policy, this procedure is
known as the "standard price approach".
This procedure according to the standard
price approch is based on the Waste Water
Charges Act.
In the case ofthecertificatesolution, specific
total amounts of perrnissibleemissions (e.g.
the amounl of permissible carbon dioxide
emissions) aredetermined. Each certificate,
whose ownership allows a specific amount
of ernissions, can be traded on markets by
the cmitters according to their needs. The
price of each certificate, and hence the
permissible use of the environment, is then
determined by the market.
Ch arges are also described as price controls
since they directly change the prices of
production factors or consumer goods. The
use of cenificates can also be described as
quantity controls since they directly
deterrnine not the price but the perrnissible
arnounts. The prices are not subject to direct
politcal influence but to the individual
rnarkets. They show polluters that use of the
environment in not free of charge and thus,
when designed accordingly, lead to a rnore
efficiant use of limited resources. This, for
example, encourages the polluters to search
for better technologies, i.e. a desirable
dynamic incentive effect is generated with
regard to technological developments.
.From thc Gennan C'11unc1h pumt ot \JC\\.
hoth m~u1.1mt:nt:, , duu·ge~ .111d certtlcalö.
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