1 Environmental Accounts in EUROSTAT London Group Meeting-New York June 2006 Rainer Muthmann, Head of Unit E3

2 European Strategy for Environmental Accounting The main recommendation of the ESEA Task Force, approved in 2003 by the Statistical Programme Commitee (SPC) is the regular production of the key environmental accounts modules : - air emission accounts - economy-wide material flows accounts - environmental protection expenditure - environment industry accounts - environmental taxes - forest-timber accounts - sub-soil asset accounts (oil and gas) - water flow accounts

3 EU Thematic Strategy on natural resources Long term objective (2030) to de-couple economic growth from environmental degradation Examines the whole life cycle, from natural resources to products and finally to waste Points towards solutions such as cleaner technologies or environmentally less problematic substitutes

4 EU Memorandum of understanding (EEA, JRC, DG ENV, Eurostat) Eurostat will manage three Data Centres: Natural Resources, Integrated Product Policy (IPP) and Waste. Each Data Centre shall act as « information hub », being the core reference point for specific questions related to statistical information, managing data with quality control and developing methodologies to provide indicators on the environmental impacts of resources, products and waste Each Data Centre will be a tool for the implementation of the EU Strategy on the sustainable use of natural resources

5 WORK ON THE DIFFERENT ENVIRONMENTAL ACCOUNTS MODULES AIR EMISSIONS : Data available to public on Eurostat web site 2 Statistics In Focus on economic activities and their pressure on the environment 2006 data collection ECONOMY-WIDE MATERIAL FLOWS: Time series from 1970 at EU 15 level New standard tables to collect data at EU 25 level with a high disaggregation of materials

6 WORK ON THE DIFFERENT ENVIRONMENTAL ACCOUNTS MODULES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION EXPENDITURE Published : handbook on industry data collection Task Force to elaborate a new handbook on public sector and specialized producers data collection. Two Statistics In Focus have been published ENVIRONMENTAL INDUSTRY Task Force to elaborate standard tables and compilation guide ENVIRONMENTAL TAXES Collection of environmental taxes broken down by industry, to be published at the end of the year

7 WORK ON THE DIFFERENT ENVIRONMENTAL ACCOUNTS MODULES FOREST ACCOUNTS Integration of economic accounts for forestry into environmental accounts for forests WATER FLOW ACCOUNTS Data will be collected on the basis of standard tables agreed upon at UN level NAMEA ENERGY Work will be initiated on this module