What are environmental accounts?
Environmental accounts as a statistical system describe interactions between the economy, private households and the environment. This is done by comparing ecological (physical) data such as use of raw materials, energy, water or land as well as waste and waste water disposal and air emissions with economic (monetary) data such as gross domestic product or gross value added.
In a national economy, not only labour and produced assets are used for economic activity, production and consumption, but also non-produced natural assets, i.e. raw materials (ores, minerals, water,…), land (for production, consumption and leisure activities) and ecosystems (absorption and degradation of residuals and pollutants, waste and wastewater).
As a rule, economic activity - through use and exploitation of resources - leads to changes in the state of the environment or natural assets. Attempts are made to counteract these negative effects through targeted environmental protection measures.
In order to obtain a complete picture of the interactions between environment and society, it is necessary to acquire information about the state of the environment, as well as about key tendencies, influences and the main causes of environmental change.
An overall picture must also include the services which the environment supplies, the so-called ecosystem services. These are generally defined as those services that are provided by nature and and that people use free of charge in order to support their well-being and to secure their livelihoods.
In accordance with the Environment Programme for the EU, all the above information is a necessary requirement for the development and implementation of efficient policy.
To be able to supply the required information, instruments are needed which allow a better public representation of the above mentioned environmental impacts of economic activities and society.
Environmental accounting is such an instrument. With their information on economic and environmental data, environmental accounts provide an important basis for making environmental policy decisions.
The System of Environmental and Economic Accounting (SEEA), developed under the auspices of the United Nations, is considered to be the most important methodical basis for environmental accounting.
Environmental accounts as a statistical system describe interactions between the economy, private households and the environment. This is done by comparing ecological (physical) data such as use of raw materials, energy, water or land as well as waste and waste water disposal and air emissions with economic (monetary) data such as gross domestic product or gross value added.
The main questions are as follows:
How substantial are the pressures and impacts on the environment?
What are the services that the environment provides to society?
How is the state of the environment changing?
What measures are taken to protect the environment?
The purpose of environmental accounts is to describe these forms of interactions between society and the environment, i.e. environmental pressures, environmental protection measures and the environmental services from which society benefits through the use of environmental assets.
In an economy, economic activities, production and consumption are not only based on labour and produced assets, but also on non-produced natural assets. Parts of these natural assets, such as raw materials or land, are used directly, while other parts, such as ecosystems and other natural systems (e.g. the atmosphere) provide services for economic activities. This includes, among other things, the uptake and degradation of residues or pollutants, air emissions, waste or waste water generated during production or consumption.
The purely economic view, as it is done on the national accounts (SNA), provides a comprehensive description of economic activity within an economy.
Environmental accounts are thus an extension of the system of national accounts , to which they introduce environmentally relevant factors.
As so-called “integrated accounts” they largely follow the pattern and rules of the system of national accounts, so as to ensure that the data from both calculations are compatible. This means that the underlying concepts, definitions and structures are as close as possible to each other so that data from the environmental accounts can be linked to each other and to the identically structured national accounts data and can also be analysed together.
By including the environment in this way, namely in the form of physical and monetary data, as a relevant factor of the economy, environmental accounts contain a higher level of information than systems of national accounts alone. They provide important basic data for environmental policy discussions and decisions and, together with the systems of national accounts, they give a full picture of the interactions between society and the environment.