SEEA: A progress report with an
emphasis on EGSS
Sokol Vako
United Nations Statistics Division/DESA
Overview
• System of Environmental Economic Accounts
– Overall policy demands
– Broad overview
– Global implementation strategy
• EGSS
– Objectives at international level
– Examples in SEEA Applications and Extension
– Technical committee
System of Environmental Economic
Accounts-Overall policy demands
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Post 2015 Development Agenda
Green Economy
Rio+20 outcome document
High Level Panel Report
Current work of the Open Working Group
Broader measures of progress/Beyond GDP
World Bank Natural Capital Accounting/ WAVES
Purpose of the System of
Environmental Economic Accounts
• The economy impacts on the environment and the
environment impacts on the economy
• To understand these linkages we need to integrate
environmental and economic information
• This is the explicit purpose of the SEEA
System of Environmental Economic
Accounts (SEEA)-Brief overview
• SEEA Central Framework adopted as an international
statistical standard in 2012
– Highest level of recognition by the UNSC
– Status is the same as that of SNA
– Countries encouraged to compile accounts based on SEEA
• SEEA Experimental Ecosystem Accounting
• SEEA Applications and Extensions
• SEEA subsystems
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SEEA-Water
SEEA-Energy
SEEA-Agri (led by FAO)
SEEA-EGSS (??)
System of Environmental Economic
Accounts-Central Framework
1. 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
Goods and Services Sector (EGSS), 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
Accounts-Implementation Strategy
• Implementation strategy adopted by the UN Statistical Commission
– Long-term strategy
– Flexible and incremental based on national circumstances
– Four phases
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Establish national institutional mechanism
Self assessment of national policy priorities and data availability
Agree on priority and pilot compilation with existing data
Preparation of strategy development plan
– Creation of partnerships at global, regional/sub-regional and national
level
System of Environmental Economic
Accounts-Implementation Strategy
• Technical assistance and training
• SEEA implementation guide, compilation manuals, diagnostic tools,
technical notes, data quality assessment framework and training
materials
• Core sets of SEEA tables for data collection and reporting
• Creation of partnerships at global, regional and national level,
including cooperation with the policy and scientific communities
• Advocacy and communication
System of Environmental Economic
Accounts-Implementation Strategy
• Strategic approach to the implementation
– National Strategies for the Development of Statistics (NSDS) should be linked to
strategic planning frameworks such as the National Development Strategies,
National Sustainable Development Strategies (NSDS) and National Biodiversity
Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAP)
• Linking the implementation to policy demands
– The SEEA can serve as the statistical infrastructure in response to existing
policy frameworks such as Post 2015 Development Agenda, Natural Capital
Accounting and Wealth Accounting and Valuation of Ecosystem Services
(WAVES), green economy/green growth, sustainable production and
consumption (SPC), etc
EGSS-Objectives at the international
level
• EGSS part of the overall implementation strategy
• Country demand driven process
• Potential for inclusion of EGSS statistics to measure progress towards
the SDGs
– Employment statistics
– SPC
• OWG working document
– Focus area 9. Industrialization and promoting equality among nations
f) increase by a factor of x the share of environmentally sustainable products and services in GDP
g) by 2020 implement plans and measures to strengthen the technological capabilities of industrial
sectors, including plans to accelerate development and adoption of environmentally sound industrial
technologies and processes
h) by 2030 retrofit x% of existing industries on global level based on energy and resource-efficient
technologies and environmentally sound industrial processes
EGSS-Applications and Extensions
• Example of EGSS as part of the part 3
• Key indicators and aggregates
– The value added generated by the EGSS expressed as a
percentage of GDP
– Employment in the EGSS expressed as a percentage of total
employment
– Exports of environmental goods and services as a percentage of
the production of environmental goods and services
– Trade (exports, imports) in environmental goods and services as
a percentage of total trade
– The proportion of enterprises that produce environmental
goods and services in the economy
– The level of investment in the EGSS and its development over
time
EGSS-Applications and Extensions
• Different kinds of analysis possible
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Analysis by economic sector and industry
Analysis by environmental activity domain
Analysis by type of environmental output
Regional analysis
Analysis of associated physical data
Multiplier analyses
Technical committee
• Technical committee created as mandated by
the UNSC
• Priority to complete core table and technical
note on EGSS
• Work programme includes work on
classification of environmental activities
• Developing repository on training materials and
other relevant documents developed by
different agencies
EGSS-Where do we go from here?
• EGSS core tables and accounts (led by Eurostat,
role of Expert Group)
• Testing of EGSS in developing countries
• EGSS training materials
– In depth module that could be part of the Training
of Trainers suite of products
– Training manual
• Role of the Technical Committee and Expert
Group
• Knowledge base on EGSS