System of Environmental-Economic Accounting The UN System of Environmental- Economic Accounting (SEEA) and its implementation in pilot countries Ivo Havinga United Nations Statistics Division [email protected]Rio Conventions Pavilion Event: Transformative Initiatives in Biodiversity Mainstreaming and Financing 16 October 2014
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Ivo Havinga United Nations Statistics Division havinga@un Rio Conventions Pavilion Event:
The UN System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) and its implementation in pilot countries. Ivo Havinga United Nations Statistics Division [email protected] Rio Conventions Pavilion Event: Transformative Initiatives in Biodiversity Mainstreaming and Financing 16 October 2014. - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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System of Environmental-Economic Accounting
The UN System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) and its
statistical framework to measure environment and its interactions with economy
Adopted as international statistical standard by UN Statistical Commission in 2012
Developed through inter-governmental process
Published by UN, EU, FAO, IMF, OECD, WB
System of Environmental-Economic Accounting
The SEEA Central Framework Accounts1. Flow accounts: supply and use tables for products, natural inputs and
residuals (e.g. waste, wastewater) generated by economic activities. • physical (e.g. m2 of water) and/or monetary values (e.g. permits to
access water, cost of wastewater treatment, etc.)
2. Stock accounts for environmental assets: natural resources and land• physical (e.g. fish stocks and changes in stocks) and/or monetary
values (e.g. value of natural capital, depletion)
3. Activity / purpose accounts that explicitly identify environmental transactions already existing in the SNA. • e.g. Environmental Protection Expenditure (EPE) accounts,
environmental taxes and subsidies
4. Combined physical and monetary accounts that bring together physical and monetary information for derivation indicators, including depletion adjusted aggregates
System of Environmental-Economic Accounting
System of Environmental-Economic Accounting
System of Environmental-Economic Accounting
SEEA Experimental Ecosystem Accounting
Complements SEEA Central Framework
Integrated statistical framework for accounting for ecosystem assets and associated ecosystem services
Important first step in development of statistical framework for ecosystem accounting
Linking ecosystem assets and well-being through ecosystem services
System of Environmental-Economic Accounting
Relationship to SEEA Central Framework
Extends range of flows related to regulatory and cultural services (production boundary) for accounting compared to SNA and SEEA CF in physical and monetary terms
Many flows from Central Framework also included in Experimental Ecosystem Accounting (e.g. flows of timber), but extension of EEA is to attribute flows to spatial areas
Some Central Framework natural input flows are excluded from Experimental Ecosystem Accounting (e.g. mineral and energy resources)
System of Environmental-Economic Accounting
Approach for developing SEEA Experimental Ecosystem Accounting
System of Environmental-Economic Accounting
The SEEA Experimental Ecosystem Accounting brings in two new dimensions:1.Spatial characteristics expressed in spatial units2.Integrated or holistic view of multiple characteristics for each unit
The EEA is focused on living (renewable) natural resources
• Land • Water • Carbon • Biodiversity • Nutrients• Pollution• Human activities• Ecosystem services
Theme unifying a number of components, processes and data sets:
System of Environmental-Economic Accounting
Net ecosystem production = Gross Primary Production – Terrestrial Ecosystem Respiration
Balance of lateral imports and exports= Carbon returns – carbon ‘uses’
The two basic balancing items are designed to summarize ‘vertical’ and ‘horizontal’ carbon transfers
European carbon accounts
System of Environmental-Economic Accounting
Examples: Net ecosystem carbon balance
• On country level the ecosystem carbon accounts should be consistent with IPCC’s in assessing whether ecosystems acted as net source or sink of CO2 for a given period of time.
• The maps shows a decade average, with areas in green indicating prevailing sink (most of Europe) and in red – prevailing source functions (e.g. parts of North West Europe, Po valley in Italy, and spots of forest-burned areas of Portugal).
System of Environmental-Economic Accounting
Advancing SEEA- Experimental Ecosystem Accounting in pilot countries
List of pilot countries (7 countries) Non-exhaustive list of potential associate country pilots
Countries Africa: South Africa, Mauritius Asia: Indonesia, Vietnam, Bhutan Latin America: Mexico, Chile
* Australia* Canada* Ecuador* Netherlands* Norway* Peru (project managed by
Conservation International* Philippines (through WAVES)* Colombia (through WAVES)* United Kingdom* United States
System of Environmental-Economic Accounting
Project activities – Advancing SEEA-EEA
Norwegian funded and joint collaboration between UNSD-UNEP- CBD
Country missions Regional workshops: will gather and exchange experiences from
the country pilots and other initiatives Forum of experts: contacts of people involved in ecosystem
accounting at national level and other (related) initiatives Knowledge base: will include data and materials generated in the
course of guidelines development and country missions Research agenda: addressing challenging issues (for ex.
mainstreamed classification of ecosystem services) Guidance and training material Global strategy for SEEA EEA
System of Environmental-Economic Accounting
Management and governance
Recognize multi-agency requirements and harnessing existing knowledge
Technical committee under the auspices of the UNCEEA responsible for:
▫ Coordinate and advance the research agenda on the basis of lessons learnt from testing with the objective of developing best practices and in the longer term mainstreaming
System of Environmental-Economic Accounting
Short term priorities Spatial units
• Scaling and aggregation methods
Methods for measuring ecosystem services and assets• Classification of services and link to ecosystem condition
Presentation and accounting structure• Dissemination, including visualisations
Linking to socio-economic data• Integration of scales
Valuation of ecosystem services
System of Environmental-Economic Accounting
Medium to long term priorities Accounting concepts
• Degradation – valuation and allocation• Integration of ecosystem values into standard accounts and balance sheets
(links to wealth a/c)• Treatment of expenditures on ecosystems
Connections between ecosystem services and ecosystem condition• Often seen as competing approaches• SEEA EEA sees clear links but they are complex and non-linear
Aggregation and ecosystem-wide indicators• Most challenging aspect: needs to build and combine all other research and
testing work
System of Environmental-Economic Accounting
Building on existing initiatives
SEEA and WAVES• WAVES uses as entry point the Ministries of Planning
or Ministries of Finance – focus on institutional arrangements and policy applications
• SEEA – UNSD uses the NSOs as entry points and has as objective to assist countries in developing an integrated statistical system to support the implementation of the SEEA
System of Environmental-Economic Accounting
SEEA and TEEB
TEEB focuses on answer specific policy questions in specific geographical areas
Objective is to raise awareness of the issues through using valuation
Broad ranges of types of projects Working with SEEA with UNSD taking the lead
in supporting countries in the SEEA implementation in the countries of the project
System of Environmental-Economic Accounting
SEEA and BIOFIN
BIOFIN has the objective of bringing together different stakeholders and make an assessment of the financing for biodiversity (e.g. financial gaps, etc.)
Developing a taxonomy on biodiversity expenditures, taxes, subsidies
SEEA – UNSD is working with BIOFIN to align the taxonomy with the standard classifications of environmental activities
System of Environmental-Economic Accounting
SEEA CF Accounts
Ecosystem Accounts
Accounts for environmental activities and transaction
System of Environmental-Economic Accounting
SEEA and CBD
Aichi Target 2 is about mainstreaming biodiversity into national accounts
SEEA has been recognized as the statistical framework for measuring and monitoring ecosystems and biodiversity into an accounting approach
CBD partner in the project
System of Environmental-Economic Accounting
SEEA and Green economy initiatives
OECD recognized the SEEA as the statistical framework for green growth indicators
SEEA informs many of the green economy policies
SEEA working in Mauritius with PAGE (Programe of Action for Green Economy)
System of Environmental-Economic Accounting
National and international communities must join hands in advancing the work!