Directorate E: Agriculture and environment statistics; statistical cooperation Unit E3: Environment statistics 1 Commission proposals for the UNCEEA research agenda London Group Meeting-New York June 2006 Rainer Muthmann, Head of Unit E3

Directorate E: Agriculture and environment statistics; statistical cooperation Unit E3: Environment statistics 2 Chapter 3 – Physical flow accounts use of natural resources is basically stated by the existing Material Flow Accounting (MFA) methodology (ESTAT) already existing good description of the material consumption environmental impact of resource use is of high political interest need for further research on these impacts by developing agreed standards in Life Cycle Analysis (LCA), impact factors, weighting and other related fields link between IPP, MFA and Waste Accounts

Directorate E: Agriculture and environment statistics; statistical cooperation Unit E3: Environment statistics 3 Thematic Strategy on the sustainable use of natural resources Environmental impact Economic activity 2005 Resource use 2. Resource specific impacts: Impact / kg 1.Resource productivity: € / kg Eco-efficiency € / impact

Directorate E: Agriculture and environment statistics; statistical cooperation Unit E3: Environment statistics 4 Chapter 5 – Accounting for economic activities and products related to the environment Development of resource management expenditure accounts - to develop further in the wider context of expenditure accounts and related policy analysis - in addition to the expenditure, also the gains, e.g. in long-term resource availability should be included. Development of the environment industry -Eurostat created in spring 2006 a Task Force for the further development of a practical "Compilation guide" on the collection and dissemination of statistics on environmental industry - further research and promotion of the compilation of statistics on environmental industry could benefit from this work.

Directorate E: Agriculture and environment statistics; statistical cooperation Unit E3: Environment statistics 5 Chapter 5 – Accounting for economic activities and products related to the environment EPEA does not only focus on the expenditure side of environmental protection but included is the concept of net cost The overall net cost of environmental protection (EP) has because of methodological and practical difficulties been left aside

Directorate E: Agriculture and environment statistics; statistical cooperation Unit E3: Environment statistics 6 Other chapters (4,6 and 8) Chapter 4 – Hybrid flow accounts: statistics on production and use of energy (Energy Accounts), data on the energy producing infrastructure would give valuable insights for environmental policy Chapter 6 – Accounting for other environmental related transactions: as being an integral part of the EPEA environmentally related taxes, subsidies, investment grants and transfers needs to be identified and recorded appropriately Chapter 8 – Specific resource accounts: the classification as 'produced' would be misleading for cultivated forests and water reservoirs. The creation of a new class like 'semi- natural' assets or 'eco-systems related assets' could create more clarity

Directorate E: Agriculture and environment statistics; statistical cooperation Unit E3: Environment statistics 7 Collaboration Eurostat and Statistics Sweden In August 2005 at the UNCEEA meeting, Statistics Sweden and Eurostat agreed to act as joint coordinators for the revision of the SEEA chapter six on “Accounting for other environmental related transactions” Proposing to also include in the work programme chapter five “Accounting for economic activities and products related to the environment” due to the inter-linkage of the two chapters Main focus on environmental subsidies and natural resource management accounts