With urgent environmental and social action needed from businesses, the tax function has never had a more critical role in helping businesses accelerate and achieve their sustainability goals. However, whilst many businesses are rapidly adapting their strategies to the development of carbon regimes, environmental taxes and sustainability incentives, their tax departments are often not included in these discussions. And as energy and environmental taxes continue to increase in significance, businesses need to understand the wider impact tax functions can have.

The EY Sustainability Tax team can help you turn climate ambition into action through a holistic view of your business tax strategy. Our multi-disciplinary, cross-function approach to tax sustainability will deliver long-term value through:

• Cross-function approach to deliver wider value: By bringing a holistic cross-functional approach, including Law, Environmental, Social and Governance, Supply chain and technology services, businesses can be better equipped to achieve their sustainability goals and optimise opportunities.
• Reducing the cost of operations: The overall costs of operations can be reduced by ensuring energy and environmental taxes are managed, strategies are adapted and reliefs are identified and implemented.
• Improving the return on investment (ROI) of sustainability-related projects: By identifying and securing sustainability-related incentives and government funding, the ROI of projects from renewable energy investments to energy efficiency retrofits can be positively impacted.
• Mitigating risk: The threat of audit, legal challenge, penalties and reputational damage can be reduced by ensuring all compliance and reporting requirements are met.
• Engagement with policymaking: Companies also want to understand how environmental taxes will develop and how they can communicate with policymakers so that they achieve the desired outcomes without causing undue complexity for businesses.