Welcome to the 17th Global Conference on Environmental Taxation - Smart instrument mixes in a greening economy

It is a great pleasure to invite you to the Netherlands for the 17th Global Conference on Environmental Taxation which will be held on the 22^nd and 23^rd of September 2016 in Groningen.

Over the past 16 years, the GCET conferences have materialized as a useful and important meeting place for experts and scholars from all parts of the world taking interest in experiences and insights relating to environmental taxation in a wide sense. The fiscal perspective has also become significant following the recent economic and financial crisis. The GCET community has generated lots of insights into taxes, fees and other environmental instruments. How to employ different environmental regulatory instruments in harmony in order to orchestrate effective and efficient policy has not yet been a focal point of interest. Given the advances in our understanding of individual instruments it is high time to examine how these instruments are working in conjunction with each other.

As the Netherlands will hold the EU presidency from January till June 2016 this conference will allow to showcase Dutch and EU achievements in the area of environmental taxation and to contrast these with experiences from around the world. At the request of the Ministry of Finance a special session on how to deal with the risk of dwindling incomes from environmental taxes will be held. It seems that the country fears to fall prey to its own success in setting environmental incentives in such a way that we behave more environmentally cautious!

The conference will explore a wide range of instrument mixes and topics extending from charges, fees, taxes, subsidies, tax expenditures, emissions trading, linking of emission trading systems, green fiscal reforms and budget constraints, and voluntary approaches from economic, legal and policy perspectives. According to the tradition of the GCET conferences, contributions by academic scholars are encouraged as well as contributions from experts representing national and international administrations and organizations and also this year a selection of the best contributions will be published in the prestigious peer-reviewed edited volume “Critical issues in environmental taxation” from Edward Elgar publishers.

The conference will take place at the Martini Plaza – the city’s international conference center. The location is easily reachable from Amsterdam airport and conveniently located within the city. Conference hotels are located within walking distance.

The target audience for the 17th GCET are specialists from all parts of the world who are interested in the exchange of ideas, information, and research findings about instrument mixes, environmental taxation issues, and sustainable economic development, including:

• Academics from universities and higher education in the fields of law, economics, taxation, accounting, public administration, environmental studies, etc.,
• Government officials from ministries and departments of finance, taxation, energy, water, environment, natural resources etc. including from provincial/state/territorial levels,
• International and Non-Governmental Organization representatives, Tax and Accounting professionals, private sector executives, and experts.

We look forward to welcome you to the Netherlands,

Important dates

Deadline for submission of abstracts: May 22nd 2016
Notification of acceptance of papers: June 10th 2016
Paper submission deadline: August 21st 2016
Deadline for early registrations: August 8th 2016
Deadline by which presenting authors must be registered in order for their presentation to be included in the program: August 1st 2016
Registration opens: March 2016

The Global Conference on Environmental Taxation (22^nd-23^rd September) will be held in Groningen at the Martini Plaza, Springerzaal/Foyer.

Conference venue address:
Leonard Springerlaan 2, 9727 KB Groningen, The Netherlands

The reception on the 21st September will be held at the Academy Building of the University of Groningen. It is located at the Broerstraat 5, 9712 CP Groningen

Conference sponsors: