Environmental Fiscal Reform and the Challenge of the Oil Palm. Towards Sustainable Production

Abstract

The oil palm agroindustry has experienced significant growth in recent decades due to the increasing global demand for palm oil and its derivatives. However, this rapid development has raised concerns about its adverse impacts on the environment. In this literature review article, environmental fiscal reforms implemented in the oil palm sector are examined, with the objective of analyzing how the application of fiscal incentives and the incorporation of green taxes can promote more sustainable and environmentally responsible practices in this sector. This research was based on an exhaustive review of the scientific and technical literature available on the subject of environmental fiscal reforms in the oil palm agroindustry. Academic databases such as Scopus, Sciencedirect and websites of governmental and environmental organizations were searched using key terms related to oil palm, environmental taxation, incentives and fiscal taxes. The search equation was TITLE-ABS-KEY (("Green Taxes" OR "Tax Incentives" OR "tax reduction" OR "environmental tax")) AND (LIMIT-TO (SUBJAREA, "AGRI") OR LIMIT-TO (SUBJAREA, "ENVI") OR LIMIT-TO (SUBJAREA, "ECON") OR LIMIT-TO (SUBJAREA, "SOCI")) AND (LIMIT-TO (EXACTKEYWORD, "Environmental Tax Reform")) AND (LIMIT-TO (DOCTYPE, "ar")) AND (LIMIT-TO (SRCTYPE, "j")), which yielded 74 articles, which were processed with the help of R Studio's Biblioshiny and VOSviewer for bibliometric analysis. This analysis was complemented with a systematic review of the literature where the context of oil palm, its advantages and disadvantages for the global and national economy, the problem of deforestation and loss of biodiversity, environmental tax reforms, environmental taxes as a commitment to the SDGs and tax incentives for the sustainability of oil palm were identified. The results reflect the global interest in contributing to environmental conservation through Environmental Fiscal Reforms, which is why several economies have opted to focus on decarbonization through the production of renewable energies such as biogas, which in turn encourages the growth of the oil palm industry. Similarly, there is a notable interest in scientific production on the subject, especially in European countries, where Germany, the United Kingdom, China and the United States lead the ranking with the highest number of articles and citations, as opposed to LatinAmerica, where there are no publications on the subject under study. In short, it can be concluded that there is growing concern about climate change and the alternatives to reduce its impact, which is why environmental tax, tax reform, environmental economics and energy policy are seen as driving research topics.