Enhancing Environmentally Sustainable Growth in Finland

This document examines Finland’s policy on natural and environmental resource management. In many fields, progress has been made and pollution curbed. However, there is still room for improvement with regard to cost-effectiveness. Economic evaluation of the measures planned in various fields should accordingly be more systematic. Until now, pollution abatement has been achieved largely through regulation; given the likelihood that very few least-cost options remain, it will be even more important to make wider use of economic instruments to minimise the cost of future measures. In order to ensure that Finnish enterprises remain competitive, energy and fuel taxes are heavier on households than on businesses (in particular the more energy-intensive ones, such as the wood and paper-pulp industries and the electricity sector). Restoring the balance in this area would bring about a marked improvement in the costeffectiveness of Finland’s policy to reduce CO2 emissions, and foster ...