How to prepare for the implementation of the EU Taxonomy in the agricultural sector in Czechia? Development of decision support tools and  regulatory Impact Assessment 

A number of sub-instruments are being developed to meet the EU’s environmental goals such as New Green Deal targets or achieving carbon neutrality, etc. One of them is the EU Taxonomy, which is a system for classifying economic activities according to their environmental impacts. The EU Taxonomy aims to encourage private investment in sustainable growth and contribute to a climate neutral economy in a number of different sectors. Agriculture is one of them.

The project will lead to the preparation of a suitable environment for implementation of the expected EU requirements for evaluation of sustainable management in agriculture and forestry, more precisely to the preparation of an evaluation classification scheme (the Taxonomy) for private companies with obligation to perform and publish such evaluation as well as for financial institutions and investors. Based on the analysis of appropriate data (IS RESTEP, other public or private data), LCA, carbon or water footprint methods etc. the project will create a methodology and a set of software tools for entrepreneurs and financial institutions. The part of the project will also lead to a complex material for the Ministry of Agriculture to facilitate the establishment of the whole taxonomy system.

The IEEP team will focus on institutional analysis and impact assessment of the implementation of the EU Taxonomy in the field of agriculture. Therefore, an analysis of potential conflicts and barriers related to the implementation of the sustainable agriculture classification system will be carried out in relation to key actors (MoA, MoE, farmers, credit and insurance providers, investors, etc.) and the overall impacts of the implementation will be evaluated in relation to the resulting draft sustainable agriculture classification system in the form of a document similar to the RIA reports.

Impact analysis of the limited allocation of funds for large enterprises under the Operational Program Enterprise and Innovation for Competitiveness (OPPIK).

According to the decision of the European Commission (C 2015, 3039) the support of large enterprises can reach (after considering all exceptions and other circumstances) only less than 30 % of this operational programme’s financial allocation. This restriction threatens the ability to use spendable funds of the programme to reach its goals. One of these goals is to reach substantial energy savings thanks to specific goals 3.2 and 3.5. The ex-post analysis of the projects funded in the last programming period (2007–2013) was conducted including the calculation of the probable effects of OPPIK with the given rules of the current programme on both small and large enterprises in this programming period (2014–2020). The analysis of absorption capacity was also conducted for some priority axes and legal correctness analysis of the current OPPIK’s rules.

Calculation of compliance regulatory costs of companies related to the reporting of data into the Integrated Pollution Register.

The IEEP team, in cooperation with VYCERRO, carried out a representative survey of randomly selected sample operators (especially medium and large enterprises) on the additional costs of reporting data to the Integrated Pollution Register (so-called compliance regulatory costs). The main identified categories according to the contribution to the total compliance costs were labor costs, outsourcing (outsourcing costs) and costs of measurement and software. The study aimed to answer questions what is the amount and structure of these costs (in overall terms and broken down by different categories of obligated entities) and what are the main factors determining the cost level.

Implementation of regulatory impact assessment of selected laws and regulation instruments in the Czech Republic.

IEEP regularly deals with regulatory impact assessment (RIA process) of Czech draft laws and other regulatory instruments:

• In 2015 – 2016 IEEP carried out the RIA of the draft law on end-of-life products for the Czech Ministry of the Environment.
• In 2015 IEEP elaborated the RIA of the Act No. 256/2001 Coll., the funeral law for the Ministry of Regional Development.
• In 2007, IEEP carried out an impact assessment of the regulation for public projects and programs, including a proposal for a single RIA procedure / methodology for the Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic.

Implementation of environmental taxes in EU countries – analysis of the specifics of the new Member States.

The project was focused on a detailed analysis of the energy-intensive industries in the countries of the European Union and examined the short-term and long-term effects of so-called “green tax reforms” on these sectors. The complexity of the analysis consisted in the use of various methodological approaches, including extensive econometric models and case studies.

Analyzing the influences of implemented administrative and economic instruments of environmental protection on macroeconomic aggregates (GDP and inflation rate).

Dynamic changes in environmental protection during the transformation period had a significant impact on macroeconomic variables in the Czech Republic. The introduction of strict limits for dangerous substances emissions or increased demands on the quality of water treatment plants caused considerable additional investments and costs for enterprises and households. It implicitly influenced the values chosen for macro-aggregates, e. g. growth of GDP or the inflation rate.
The aim of the project was to model the expected changes in state environmental policyv in the Czech Republic.