Hybrid accounts (NAMEA)
To develop accounting systems for sustainable development, national accounts systems need to be extended to include external environmental and social costs.
This is a basic idea which the polluter pays principle, set out in the fifth Environment Action Programme of the European Commission, picks up by underlining the necessity that the responsibility for environmental damage has to be shared by public sectors and polluters.
Hybrid accounts are a suitable tool in this context. The name ‘hybrid’ comes from the fact that they include data from two different systems (environment and economy) with a standard classification. Air emissions or waste generation for example are linked to gross value added.
The standard classification in economic sectors (ÖNACE classification) and private households makes it possible to show the impacts of a society’s actions on the environment. This means a shift in focus from commonly used economic indicators to material flows of environmental relevance, and/or to the environmental expenditures of a particular sector, i.e. from economic results to resources consumed, emissions released or waste produced. One of the key phrases frequently used in this discussion is ‘decoupling resource consumption from economic development’.
Hybrid accounts follow the idea behind NAMEA (National Accounting Matrix including Environmental Accounts), which is a satellite account whose purpose is to extend the system of national accounts by including environmental data.
NAMEA and other accounts, e.g. for the energy sector, are based on the same SNR conforming method. The only difference is that in NAMEA data are linked to national accounting data, whereas this is not the case with the other accounts.
For specific environmental aspects such as waste generation or air emissions, specific NAMEAs are calculated. Several ecological modules considered together are referred to as ‘integrated NAMEA‘.
Integrated NAMEA
The integrated NAMEA shows material flows (use of materials, use of energy, air emissions and waste) and environmental expenditures, as well as environmental protection expenditures and environmental taxes together with economic data (gross value added, production value and working population) ...