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In light of the detrimental impact of land degradation on biodiversity1, France has adopted the No Net Land Take (NNLT)2 objective. This objective was first introduced in the Biodiversity Plan, a comprehensive strategy to preserve the country's natural habitats and species diversity3. It was later incorporated into the Climate and Resilience Law in 2021, a landmark legislation that sets out France's commitments to combat climate change and adapt to its effects4. The No Net Land Take objective is to guarantee that by 2050, the amount of land converted into artificial surfaces (such as buildings or roads) will not exceed the amount of previously artificialized land that is restored to a natural state, a process known as renaturation. The interim target for 2031 is to halve land consumption compared to the previous decade. Land consumption is defined as the process of transforming natural, agricultural or forest land into built surfaces for housing, economic activities or infrastructure. In the short term, the intermediate target for 2031 is a national envelope of 121,568 hectares for the current decade5. The annual flow over recent decades has been approximately 25,000 hectares6. The medium-term target for 2050 is to achieve a balance between land take and land renaturation.

IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) defines sufficiency policies as "a set of measures and daily practices that avoid demand for energy, materials, land and water while delivering human well-being for all within planetary boundaries."7. Land sufficiency refers to policies designed to reduce land consumption to preserve the biosphere. In this context, the NNLT target introduces a land budget akin to the Paris Agreement's proposal for a total cap on global carbon emissions or carbon budget. More specifically, it introduces a constraint on land consumption for municipalities over the coming decades. While land refers to the surface area available for human activities, soil refers to the upper layer crucial for ecological functions and ecosystems. This definition issue underlines the limits of the NNLT approach in factoring the impact of artificialisation on soil quality8. Nonetheless, it represents a significant shift in planning policy towards slowing down the dynamics of urban sprawl.

At the same time, land taxation in France is high compared with other European countries9. It is also a significant source of revenue for local authorities. Indeed, property taxation is based on orienting housing consumption and production by taxing or subsidising it and providing budgetary resources for the State and local authorities10. Moreover, the academic literature shows that the more communes rely on local taxes, the more likely they are to expand land use in order to increase their revenues, mainly by taxing the newly developed land11.

The article aims at exploring this question in the case of France. It reveals a significant challenge for local authorities: reconciling the long-term objective of preserving biodiversity (and thus reducing land consumption and induced revenues) with the short-term aim of controlling their budgets12.

• 1. IPBES. (2018). The IPBES assessment report on land degradation and restoration (L. Montanarella, R. Scholes, & A. Brainich, Eds.; Secretariat of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services). https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3237392
• 2. In French, Zéro Artificialisation Nette (ZAN)
• 3. Ministère de la Transition Écologique et Solidaire. (2018). Plan biodiversité. Comité interministériel biodiversité. https://www.ecologie.gouv.fr/sites/default/files/18xxx_Plan-biodiversit…
• 4. (LOI N° 2021-1104 Du 22 Août 2021 Portant Lutte Contre Le Dérèglement Climatique et Renforcement de La Résilience Face à Ses Effets, 2021)
• 5. Ministère de la Transition Écologique et de la Cohésion des Territoires. (2023a). Fascicules de mise en oeuvre de la réforme ZAN [Rapports institutionnels]. Direction Générale de l’Aménagement, du Logement et de la Nature. https://artificialisation.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/fascicules-zan
• 6. CEREMA. (2023). Analyse de la consommation d’espaces—Période du 1er janvier 2009 au 1er janvier 2022 [Rapport d’étude]. https://artificialisation.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/sites/artificia… ; Ministère de la Transition Écologique et de la Cohésion des Territoires. (2023b). ZAN : Guide synthétique. https://artificialisation.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/guide-synthetiq…
• 7. IPCC (with Shukla, P. R., Skea, J., Slade, R., Al Khourdajie, A., van Diemen, R., McCollum, D., Pathak, M., Some, Vyas, P., Fradera, R., Belkacemi, M., Hasija, A., Lisboa, G., Luz, S., & Malley, J.). (2022). Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group III to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009157926
• 8. By defining renaturation as all “actions or operations to restore or improve the functionality of a soil, having the effect of transforming an artificialized soil into a non-artificialized soil”, the ZAN nomenclature avoids, for example, the difficult question of the definition of renaturation and the initial state to which it should return (France Stratégie, 2019). However, this term is still little used in the scientific community, which talks more about restoring soil functions, or refunctionalisation. These concepts are not limited to land use but also include their level of multifunctionality.
• 9. Sainteny & Dupuis (2022).
• 10. André & Meslin (2021).
• 11. Colsaet, Laurans & Levrel (2018).
• 12. Boulay et al. (2022).

More than thirty taxes are linked to land take13, in the sense that their revenues evolve according to the rate of artificialisation. However, these taxes do not integrate the environmental value of soils or aim to protect them, mainly because they were not designed to do so.

Table 1: Revenues at the municipal level from the main taxes on land in 2021. Source: Cour des comptes, 2022

In 2022, the revenue of land taxes represented an average of 34% of the commune's total revenue and more than 60% on average for the 10% of communes most dependent on land taxes14. Other municipal revenues come from other operating revenues (including government transfers) and, to a lesser extent, from investments and borrowings. Among these revenues, property tax on built-up properties is by far the most important, accounting for around three-quarters of local land taxes – a phenomenon accentuated by the gradual disappearance of the housing tax.

• 13. CEREMA (2021). ; Chapelle et al. (2024) ; Cour des comptes (2022) ; Sainteny (2018).
• 14. Calculations based on data from the Recensement des éléments d'imposition (REI) and the Comptes des collectivités locales (OFGL data).

These figures hide significant disparities between municipalities, mainly because the dynamics of urbanisation are very heterogeneous across France. Land consumption is mainly concentrated in the main demographic and productive agglomerations, such as suburban and coastal ones, which consumed an average of just over 1% of their surface area between 2009 and 202315. It also characterises some rural areas that are losing households. Although these rural areas consume less artificial land than the average agglomeration - 0.26% and 0.66% of their surface respectively - they still account for around 10% of artificial land consumption in recent years16.

Rural municipalities are thus slightly more dependent on transfers from the State and less dependent on property tax revenues, which represent on average 30% of their total revenues. This proportion should be compared with the 35% for peri-urban and coastal municipalities. Another difference between municipalities lies in the composition of their revenues, with, for example, a higher proportion of property tax on non-built-up land (TFPNB) and a lower contribution from business property tax (CFE) in rural municipalities.

Figure 1: Deciles of land take in municipalities of France between 2009 and 2022 in hectares. Calculations based on Fichiers fonciers data (CEREMA)

These territorial disparities in revenues from land taxes raise the question of how to compensate for the future revenue variations resulting from the implementation of land use policies in municipalities with highly heterogeneous and sometimes competitive dynamics. Furthermore, taxation is considered in France as a potential tool in the campaign against land take as it could provide an incentive in preserving natural land17.     

Ultimately, the NNLT target calls for a broader tax reform that conserves local authority budgets and does not hinder the achievement of biodiversity preservation goals through the incentive it can provide.

• 15. Calculations based on Fichiers fonciers data (CEREMA).
• 16. Bocquet & Cavailhès (2020) ; CEREMA (2023) ; France Stratégie (2023).
• 17. Ministère de la Transition Écologique et de la Cohésion des Territoires. (2023a).

Finally, part of the property tax is collected at national level and redistributed to local authorities according to criteria that may, paradoxically, encourage artificialisation. For example, the State subsidy takes into account factors such as the number of inhabitants or the number of kilometres of roads, criteria often associated with more densely populated and artificial areas. This approach is distorting because it favours areas with higher land pressure18 instead of supporting sustainable practices that limit artificialisation and preserve natural areas. Tax revenues would thus create competition between territories, which is not corrected by the way revenues are ultimately redistributed19.

More broadly, land taxation raises complex issues related to local political contexts, where priorities for land use and conservation differ significantly between urban and rural areas. While large cities often have more financial resources and continue to expand, rural communities seek to preserve their natural spaces while remaining attractive. This creates a significant divide, with the economic and political stakes varying from one area to another. The challenge is therefore to rethink taxation to respond to these local contexts while ensuring fiscal and environmental justice.

Ecosystem conservation requires funding, which is often a challenge for rural or less developed communities. The introduction of instruments such as Ecological Fiscal Transfers (EFT), which propose to redistribute part of revenues to communities according to ecological criteria20 could bridge this gap by redirecting financial resources to areas where biodiversity conservation is a priority.

• 18. Cour des comptes (2022).
• 19. Carbonnier (2019).
• 20. Busch et al. (2021).

France has adopted the NNLT target of zero net land take by 2050, reflecting a shift towards recognising land as a finite resource to be preserved. Its implementation is having a disproportionate impact on local authorities, which are both responsible for the far-reaching changes in land use in the areas concerned towards more sustainable lifestyles, and directly affected by the associated reduction in their budgets. However, land taxation is struggling to fully meet its current objectives - to generate stable financial resources to fund local government functions and to ensure a degree of redistribution - and to cope with new challenges, such as steering the behaviour of economic agents towards less soil degradation. Moreover, the complexity of the land tax system, characterised by the accumulation of successive reforms, makes it difficult for stakeholders to anticipate and plan strategically. The NNLT is an opportunity to embark on a tax reform that could bring about lasting changes in land use, while promoting greater equity in transfers between urban and rural areas.

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Eulalie Saïsset is a PhD student in economics at Sciences Po Centre de Recherche sur les Inégalités Sociales (CRIS), CIRED and the French Ministry for Ecological Transition. She is working on the territorial planning of the no net land take target and the inequalities it implies. Eulalie holds master's degrees from Mines Paris and the Paris School of Economics.