1. The EU policy context: Ecosystem Capital Accounting
Jan-Erik Petersen
European Environment Agency (chair)
Kremena Gocheva, Ministry of Environment and Water, Bulgaria (rapporteur)

2. Components of Natural Capital
NCA pilot focus
Natural capital
Ecosystem capital:
(linked to ecological systems and processes)
Sub-soil assets:
(geological resources)
Minerals, earth elements,
fossil fuels, gravel , salts etc.
Non-renewable
& depletable
Abiotic flows:
(linked to geo- physical cycles)
Solar, wind, hydro, geo-thermal etc.
Renewable & non-depletable
Ecosystems as asset:
Structure and condition
Ecosystem service flows:
Provisioning
Regulation & maintenance
Cultural services
Renewable & depletable

3. Methodological challenges
Discussion point: Evaluating methodological options for accounting for natural capital, both for physical accounts and valuation
Contributions:
NCA is not equal to monetary valuation
Double counting – tackle methodically
Concepts: accounts vs. indicators
Stock and flow – in NC and accounting terms
A coherent data framework is important

4. Next steps
Objective of NCA pilot: Come up with a concrete methodological guidance that acts as reference document for implementation in EU MS
EEA works on simplified ecosystem capital accounts
MAES will support first biophysical (until 2014) and later economic valuation (until 2020) process in MSs
Improve EU wide dataset using MS inputs related to ecosystem capital stocks:
Data
Testing of methodologies
Guidance requirements

5. Ecosystem Assessments in EU Biodiversity Strategy 2020
Action 5 under target 2 of the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020:
”Member States, with the assistance of the Commission, will map and assess the state of ecosystems and their services in their national territory by 2014,
assess the economic value of such services, and promote the integration of these values into accounting and reporting systems at EU and national level by 2020.”

6. Organic carbon datasets (land use: cropping, husbandry, forestry, …)
Example: data organisation
Analysis
Indicators
Reports
Data publication
Accounting tables
ECA database
Organic carbon datasets
Land
Water datasets
Spatial datasets
(reference data, disaggregated stats, and proxies like CAPRI or vegetation phenology)
Multi-purpose,
cross-cutting
databases
Statistics database
(land use: cropping, husbandry, forestry, …)

7. Progress so far in pilot study
Held a workshop to discuss key concepts and first outputs of NCA pilot study, hosted by EEA, June; see under:
1/eureca-meetings/natural-capital-accounting-2013/
Results of EU Member State survey are coming in
Draft of methodological reference document will go into consultation in November
Further information:

8. Biophysical structure or process Limit pressures via policy action?
(e.g. woodland habitat or net primary productivity )
Service
(e.g. flood protection, or harvestable products)
Function
(e.g. slow passage of water, or biomass)
Benefit
(e.g. contribution to aspects of well-being such as health and safety)
Σ Pressures
Limit pressures via policy action?
Value
(e.g. willingness to pay for woodland protection or for more woodland, or harvestable products)
Environment The Social and Economic System
CICES
Supporting or intermediate services
Marketable products and services
Final services
Provisioning, regulating, maintenance services
Ecosystem outputs
Goods and benefits
the `production boundary`