System of Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting

System of Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting (SEEA) is a framework to compile statistics

Statistics

Statistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....

linking environmental statistics

Environmental statistics

Environmental statistics is the application of statistical methods to environmental science. It covers procedures for dealing with questions concerning both the natural environment in its undistrurbed state and the interaction of humanity with the environment...

to economic statistics

Economic data

Economic data or economic statistics may refer to data describing an actual economy, past or present. These are typically found in time-series form, that is, covering more than one time period or in cross-sectional data in one time period Economic data or economic statistics may refer to data...

. SEEA is described as a satellite system to the United Nations

United Nations

The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

System of National Accounts

United Nations System of National Accounts

The United Nations System of National Accounts is an international standard system of national accounts, the first international standard being published in 1953...

(SNA). This means that the definitions, guidelines and practical approaches of the SNA are applied to the SEEA. This system enables environmental statistics to be compared to economic statistics as the system boundaries are the same after some processing of the input statistics. By analysing statistics on the economy and the environment

Environment (biophysical)

The biophysical environment is the combined modeling of the physical environment and the biological life forms within the environment, and includes all variables, parameters as well as conditions and modes inside the Earth's biosphere. The biophysical environment can be divided into two categories:...

at the same time it is possible to show different patterns of sustainability for production and consumption. It can also show the economic consequences of maintaining a certain environmental standard.

Scope

The SEEA is a satellite system of the SNA that consists of several sets of accounts. In broad terms, the area can be described as enabling any user of statistics to compare environmental issues to general economics, knowing that the comparisons are based on the same entities, for example, pollution levels caused by a producing industry can be linked to the specific economics of that industry.

The different areas of SEEA can be briefly described as follows:

Flows of materials

By this is meant flows of materials through the economy, e.g., fuels, natural resources and chemicals, together with their emissions, may it be air emissions

Air pollution

Air pollution is the introduction of chemicals, particulate matter, or biological materials that cause harm or discomfort to humans or other living organisms, or cause damage to the natural environment or built environment, into the atmosphere....

, water pollution

Water pollution

Water pollution is the contamination of water bodies . Water pollution occurs when pollutants are discharged directly or indirectly into water bodies without adequate treatment to remove harmful compounds....

or waste

Waste

Waste is unwanted or useless materials. In biology, waste is any of the many unwanted substances or toxins that are expelled from living organisms, metabolic waste; such as urea, sweat or feces. Litter is waste which has been disposed of improperly...

to which these flows give rise.

Data on emissions, above all to the air, have been published for many countries, in particular European countries following SEEA. The main difference between traditional emissions statistics and emissions in environmental accounts are related to the system boundaries. For example, the inventories produced for the reporting of air emissions to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is an international environmental treaty produced at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development , informally known as the Earth Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro from June 3 to 14, 1992...

(UNFCCC) are based on the geographic boarders of a country while the air emission accounts following SEEA use the boundary of a specific economy (this is the "residence principle" of the national accounts). This difference is mainly shown in transport emissions

Transportation emissions

Transportation emissions are gases released into the air that come from fossil fuels. The gases emit , which is not only a green house gas but one the most emitted gases. Transportation emissions are one of the biggest contributors to emitting since everyone needs transportation. Along with...

as all emissions caused by an economy are included in SEEA. For example, emissions from trucks, ships or airplanes are allocated to their country of origin, even if the emissions occur outside of the borders of this country. Moreover, in the UNFCCC inventories, "transport" is a specific sector of its own and it is not possible to know the share of households and of different industries in the transport emissions.

Other statistics that has been developed with relation to flows of material are Economy-Wide Material Flow Accounts

Material flow accounting

Material flow accounting is the study of material flows on a national or regional scale. It is therefore sometimes also referred to as regional, national or economy-wide material flow analysis.-Definition:...

and still being developed are energy flow- and
water flow accounts

System of Environmental and Economic Accounting for Water

Water accounting is a recently created discipline that seeks to provide relevant information for water policy design and evaluation. Based on the experience of more than fifty years of national accounts, the discipline that provides the elements to calculate the Gross Domestic Product , the United...

Environmental economic statistics

Economic variables that are already included in the national accounts but are of obvious environmental interest, such as investments and expenditure in the area of environmental protection

Environmental protection

Environmental protection is a practice of protecting the environment, on individual, organizational or governmental level, for the benefit of the natural environment and humans. Due to the pressures of population and our technology the biophysical environment is being degraded, sometimes permanently...

, environment-related taxes

Ecotax

Ecotax refers to taxes intended to promote ecologically sustainable activities via economic incentives. Such a policy can complement or avert the need for regulatory approaches. Often, an ecotax policy proposal may attempt to maintain overall tax revenue by proportionately reducing other taxes...

and subsidies, and environmental classification of activities and the employment associated with them, etc. In principle, environmental taxes and environmental protection expenditures can be regarded as two sides of the same coin. Both entail costs involved in production processes that are related to the exploitation of the environment in different ways. On the one hand, environmental protection expenditures record spending on measures aimed at improving the environment, while on the other hand, taxes record the costs set by a government for the exploitation of the environment. Thus, in the total cost of production, the environmental taxes paid can be added to expenditure on environmental protection.

Stocks of natural resources

Natural resources in the sense that the accounts should make it possible to describe stocks and changes in stocks of selected finite or renewable resource

Renewable resource

A renewable resource is a natural resource with the ability of being replaced through biological or other natural processes and replenished with the passage of time...

s. These accounts deal with questions related to the monetary valuation of this natural capital, the physical quantities and qualitative aspects that do not have any market monetary value, e.g., the value of outdoor recreation and biodiversity

Biodiversity

Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or an entire planet. Biodiversity is a measure of the health of ecosystems. Biodiversity is in part a function of climate. In terrestrial habitats, tropical regions are typically rich whereas polar regions...

. Such accounts may be compiled for sub-soil assets (e.g., oil and gas resources), biological resources (e.g., forests, fish stocks), land and eco-systems.

History

In the statistical sphere the development of SEEA was begun in the early nineteen nineties. As with the development of the national accounts, the experts involved came from large international organisations, national statistical offices, researchers from universities and consultants. Experts in economics, environmental issues and statistics have developed the SEEA to a point were statistics can be compiled, analysed and published.

The concept of sustainable development

Sustainable development

Sustainable development is a pattern of resource use, that aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but also for generations to come...

encouraged the development of integrated environmental and economic accounts. The first interim version of the System of Environmental and Economic Accounting was made available in 1993 by the United Nations. According to Joy E. Hecht, PhD, the 1993 handbook did not receive the approval of the United Nations Statistical Commission

United Nations Statistical Commission

The United Nations Statistical Commission oversees the work of the United Nations Statistics Division or UNSD, and is a Functional Commission of the UN Economic and Social Council...

"...because it did not represent a consensus report but was offered to UN members as a basis for discussion and experimental implementation".

The United Nations Statistical Division carried on working with SEEA through the establishment of a city group called the London Group in 1994 (as the first meeting was held in London). The London Group is still active and is an informal group consisting of experts primarily from national statistical agencies but also international organisations and researchers from universities. In March 2005 the United Nations Statistical Commission established the UN Committee of Experts on Environmental-Economic Accounting (UNCEEA). This group consists of national statistical offices, Eurostat

Eurostat

Eurostat is a Directorate-General of the European Commission located in Luxembourg. Its main responsibilities are to provide the European Union with statistical information at European level and to promote the integration of statistical methods across the Member States of the European Union,...

, International Monetary Fund

International Monetary Fund

The International Monetary Fund is an organization of 187 countries, working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world...

, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is an international economic organisation of 34 countries founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and world trade...

, European Environment Agency

European Environment Agency

European Environment Agency is an agency of the European Union. Its task is to provide sound, independent information on the environment. It is a major information source for those involved in developing, adopting, implementing and evaluating environmental policy, and also the general public...

, several UN divisions such as the United Nations Statistics Division

UNSD

The United Nations Statistics Division , under the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs , serves as the central mechanism within the Secretariat of the United Nations to supply the statistical needs and coordinating activities of the global statistical system...

, United Nations Environment Programme, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia

United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia

The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia , headquartered in Beirut, Lebanon, is one of the five regional commissions under the administrative direction of the United Nations Economic and Social Council. UN-ESCWA promotes economic and social development of Western Asia...

, United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean

United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean

The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean was established in 1948 to encourage economic cooperation among its member states. In 1984, a resolution was passed to include the countries of the Caribbean in the name...

, and World Bank depending on the agenda and availability. The meeting participants are to be directors or similar in rank. This group has three main purposes:

to mainstream environmental-economic accounting and related statistics
to elevate the System of integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting (SEEA) to an international statistical standard
to advance the implementation of the SEEA in countries.

Another city group has also worked with SEEA. The so-called Nairobi Group was established in 1995 by the United Nations Environment Programme. The group was to advance international work in the fields of environmental and natural resource accounting and consisted of experts from developing and developed countries, international organisations and non-governmental organisations. With the release of the operational manual on SEEA in 2000 the work of the Nairobi Group has stopped.

European progress in the field has been driven by the European Commission

European Commission

The European Commission is the executive body of the European Union. The body is responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the Union's treaties and the general day-to-day running of the Union....

and national statistical offices. In 1994, the European Commission issued a communication for the establishment of green national accounting based on satellites to the System of National Accounts. Eurostat, and the European Statistical Offices used this as a basis for the development and implementation of the different topics and modules described in the SEEA 1993.

In more recent years, in June 2006, the European Council

European Council

The European Council is an institution of the European Union. It comprises the heads of state or government of the EU member states, along with the President of the European Commission and the President of the European Council, currently Herman Van Rompuy...

adopted "an ambitious and comprehensive renewed
EU Strategy for Sustainable Development". It was then stated that: "For better understanding of interlinkages between the three dimensions of SD [Sustainable Development], the core system of national income accounting could be extended by inter alia integrating stock and flow concepts and non-market work and be further elaborated by satellite accounts, e.g., environmental expenditures, material flows and taking into consideration international best practices."
The strategy has since then been revised (in 2009) but the topic remains on the agenda in Europe.

The high level conference "Beyond GDP" in November 2007 at which Commissioner Dimas concluded that "we [The European Commission] will also need to speed up and improve the development of integrated accounting in the social and environmental spheres" increased the interest for SEEA (please consult the official web-site of Beyond GDP at http://www.beyond-gdp.eu/). The idea of Beyond GDP is to increase the use of indicators related to environment and social aspects in relation to indicators such as the Gross Domestic Product

Gross domestic product

Gross domestic product refers to the market value of all final goods and services produced within a country in a given period. GDP per capita is often considered an indicator of a country's standard of living....

(GDP) "...to address global challenges such as climate change, poverty, resource depletion and health" (Beyond GDP web-site). In 2009 the European Commission issued a communication GDP and beyond Measuring progress in a changing world describing the need to complement economic indicator

Economic indicator

An economic indicator is a statistic about the economy. Economic indicators allow analysis of economic performance and predictions of future performance. One application of economic indicators is the study of business cycles....

s such as the GDP with social and environmental indicators. According to this communication, the European Commission plans to extend the existing data collection further, ready for policy analysis by 2013.

Implementing SEEA

Within the European Statistical System (ESS) as well as in other countries, such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand the further development of SEEA and the implementation of the framework has led to a focus on compiling statistics related to flows of materials (air emission, energy use, waste flows and water flows) rather than analysing stocks of natural resources. One reason is that information from the parts of SEEA related to flows of materials have been in more demand from the user community. Another reason is that it has been possible to develop harmonised approaches on which sound statistical practises could be implemented in relation to environmental economic statistics. (The ESS "...is the partnership between the Community statistical authority, which is the Commission (Eurostat), and the national statistical institutes (NSIs) and other national authorities responsible in each Member State for the development, production and dissemination of European statistics.")

Many countries have opted to use the National Accounting Matrix including Environmental Accounts (NAMEA) developed by Statistics Netherlands

Statistics Netherlands

Statistics Netherlands, founded in 1899, is a Dutch governmental institution that gathers statistical information about the Netherlands. In Dutch it is known as the Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, often abbreviated to CBS. It is a department of the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and is...

to describe the flows of material through the economy. In principle this is a Social accounting matrix

Social accounting matrix

A Social Accounting Matrix represents flows of all economic transactions that take place within an economy . It is at the core, a matrix representation of the National Accounts for a given country, but can be extended to include non-national accounting flows, and created for whole regions or area...

(SAM) supplemented by environmental accounts data on, e.g., emissions to air and waste, linked to the Use and Supply Matrices of the input-output framework

Input-output model

In economics, an input-output model is a quantitative economic technique that represents the interdependencies between different branches of national economy or between branches of different, even competing economies. Wassily Leontief developed this type of analysis and took the Nobel Memorial...

that a SAM is constructed around. Just as a SAM is a way of presenting national accounts data, NAMEA is a way of presenting environmental accounts data.

European statistical offices and Eurostat are following a European Strategy for Environmental Accounts.. As part of the strategy, a legal base was anticipated for the collection of data on Environmental Accounts. .

The legal base was passed in 2011 The legal base contain three modules that countries within the European Economic Area needs to conform to. These modules are Air emission accounts, Environmental related taxes by industry and Economy-wide material flow accounts. An extension of the legal base is already being discussed within the European Commission and with the statistical offices.

SEEA modules

Economy-Wide Material Flow Accounts
Economy-wide material flow accounts
Economy-wide material flow accounts is a framework to compile statistics linking flows of materials from natural resources to a national economy . EW-MFA are descriptive statistics, in physical units such as tonnes per year....
Environmental protection expenditure accounts
Environmental protection expenditure accounts
Environmental Protection Expenditure Account is a statistical framework that describes environmental activities in monetary terms and organises these statistics into a full set of accounts, just like that of the national accounts. The EPEA results in a net national total expenditure for...
System of Environmental and Economic Accounting for Water
System of Environmental and Economic Accounting for Water
Water accounting is a recently created discipline that seeks to provide relevant information for water policy design and evaluation. Based on the experience of more than fifty years of national accounts, the discipline that provides the elements to calculate the Gross Domestic Product , the United...

External links

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