Commission reports on environmental indicators and green national accounting
The European Commission has presented a report on progress towards the creation of a European system of integrated economic and environmental indicators and indices. The report finds that achieving sustainable development in Europe needs better availability of data and better interaction between the economy and the environment. The report shows progress made in the implementation of the five-year programme to develop "Environmental indicators and green national accounting" launched in 1995. Work done so far aims to give a comprehensive description of the most important human activities which have a negative impact on the environment. A selection of the sixty most important indicators will be published in 1998, of which 25 are already available. The Commission envisages aggregating these physical indicators with the help of a panel of scientists to form a set of ten pressure indices. A prototype methodological framework for green national accounts has been developed for most areas. These frameworks, which cover natural resources (forests, subsoil assets and water), emissions (to air and water), and data with environmental relevance in national accounts (environmental protection expenditure, eco-taxes, eco-industries) are being tested in practice by the statistical offices of a number of Member States. These test accounts involve the countries most concerned by the particular problem and, once modified in the light of the tests, will be extended to all countries by the end of 1999. The programme also includes research into the relationship between national accounts (usually expressed in monetary terms) and environmental accounts (mostly expressed in physical units). The necessity to fill gaps in data will require significant work in the field of evaluation of environmental resources. This work will provide data concerning the stocks, use, depletion and the degradation of environmental resources. Commenting on the report, Mrs. Ritt Bjerregaard, Commissioner responsible for the environment, noted the importance of knowledge and proper analysis of environmental indicators and green national accounting when the Commission draws up its strategy (in the first half of 1998) on the integration of environmental protection requirements into EU policies and activities, in particular with a view to promoting sustainable development.