Context
The Klimabonus is a groundbreaking initiative in Austria, established within the framework of the country’s eco-social tax reform. This reform marked a significant shift by integrating climate action tools directly into the tax system. Implemented in October 2022, CO2 pricing penalises behaviour that harms the climate while rewarding eco-friendly choices. Revenue collected from this tax is channelled back to Austrian residents through the Klimabonus. This programme serves as a clear message from the Austrian Government, actively promoting a climate-conscious lifestyle for its citizens.
Objectives
The Klimabonus aims to incentivise residents to adopt sustainable practices. To achieve this, the programme offers an automatic payment to all Austrian primary residents who have lived there for at least six months in a given calendar year. This eliminates the need for applications, ensuring everyone who qualifies receives the bonus. The amount awarded varies depending on the resident’s location. Those residing in areas with well-developed public transport infrastructure receive less compared to residents in regions with limited access, who often rely heavily on personal vehicles and consequently emit more CO2. This tiered system acts as a social balancing mechanism, ensuring those disproportionately burdened by the CO2 tax receive additional support during this transitional phase. Additionally, the application-free process is a first-of-its-kind initiative in Austria on such a large scale. In its first year, a remarkable 98% of the roughly 9 million eligible residents received their Klimabonus directly.
Implementation
While the majority of Austrian residents have their bank account information registered, this data is missing for over a million citizens. These individuals receive the Klimabonus via the post in the form of vouchers. Facilitating this seamless, application-free payment system necessitated collaboration across various federal ministries and the merging of diverse datasets. This process highlighted the need for up-to-date public databases, prompting improvements and data gap identification. This paves the way for the potential implementation of more application-free procedures and payouts across Austria in the future. Furthermore, the absence of applications eliminates human error during data entry, streamlining bureaucratic processes and making them more accessible. However, the programme does not account for those lacking Internet access or the knowledge to navigate online systems. Despite this limitation, the Klimabonus offers valuable lessons for other countries considering application-free procedures.