According to Margit Schratzenstaller, the transition to a circular economy has two main objectives. Firstly, the future availability
of limited resources should be secured in view of a growing world population and economy. Secondly, environmental damage from
resource extraction and use, including greenhouse gas emissions and other types of pollution, resource depletion, soil degradation,
and loss of biodiversity, should be mitigated. Fiscal instruments could address the four phases of a circular economy: resource
extraction, production, use, and recycling. In particular, taxes on resource extraction and waste, which currently play a
negligible role in Austria and internationally, should be increasingly used in the future. The additional revenues could be
used to reduce other taxes, in particular the high taxes on labour.
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