A global and multicriterial environmental taxation model for industrial pollution prevention and control

The more general use of fiscal instruments could be an appropriate means to ensure the application of the prevention principle in the field of industrial pollution. In this respect, this paper proposes an original incentive system, grounded in a comprehensive approach to the industrial polluting entities. The motivations, the main principles and the sought distinctive properties of this approach give rise to the formulation of several taxation criteria. The global taxation model enabling the appropriate integration of these criteria is grounded in an aggregation method-the method of eco-impacts-which was built on securing several improvements of the ecological optimization method. Conclusions are drawn on the potential properties of such a model with respect to the traditional evaluation criteria of economic instruments. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.