Green national accounting

Green national accounting is how the value of nature in national accounting is estimated in practice.

 

At international level the WAVES project of the world bank is at the forefront of this topic. They have a new and very informative website: http://www.wavespartnership.org/waves/

 

For the practitioners at the statistical offices the System of Environmental and Economic Accounts (SEEA) is the guiding standard on how to incorporate the value of nature in the national accounts. In February 2012, the UN Statistical Commission approved the SEEA as an international statistical standard like the System of National Accounts (SNA). This was a fundamental leap forward for natural capital accounting. The SEEA standards cover material natural resources like minerals and timber, as well as accounts for environmental protection expenditures, taxes, and subsidies. è WAVES moving beyond GDP

 

The methodology for ecosystem and ecosystem services accounting is still experimental—more work is needed to determine how best to assign values to all aspects of ecosystem services. Work is under way to refine this for the second phase of the SEEA. Here as well WAVES is working hard to further develop the methodology. The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) studies pushed the discussion forward but more works needs to be done. è GIZ Factsheet on TEEB