About the research
The introduction of the climate change levy provided the setting for a ‘natural experiment’: the researchers were able to evaluate firms’ performance before and after the policy was introduced.
In this study the data were matched with different sources such as the European Pollutions and Emissions Register as well as information on climate change agreements from HM Revenue & Customs and DEFRA to compare outcomes of plants subject to the climate change levy (CCL) and plants that were granted an 80 percent discount on the levy after joining a so-called climate change agreement.