No abstract

No abstract

The initiatives in natural capital accounting have multiplied in the recent years, particularly concerning ecosystem accounts. Yet, natural capital accounting has been rarely used to inform public policy decisions. Based on a survey for statistical offices and ministries and independent experts worldwide, we confirm that there is very little use of natural capital accounts for public policy decisions and, more so, in developing countries. The most relevant obstacles are the lack of political support by key people and institutional leadership unable to promote policy use by other ministries. Concerning developing countries, the factor which is considered as the most relevant in preventing the use of natural capital accounts for policy making is the stage of development of the country. In addition, respondents from statistical institutes and developing countries are particularly concerned about institutional obstacles and, to a lesser extent, data availability and cooperation. Respondents from ministries and independent experts are particularly concerned about design obstacles. A key result of the survey is the need to evaluate the value-added of natural capital accounts with respect to statistics. Most probably, natural capital accounts will only be integrated in national accounts in the aftermath of a major environmental disaster.

Environmental accounting is an attempt to broaden the scope of the accounting frameworks used to assess economic performance, to take stock of elements that are not recorded in public or private accounting books. These gaps occur because the various costs of using nature are not captured, being considered, in many cases, as externalities that can be forwarded to others or postponed. Positive externalities—the natural resource—are depleted with no recording in National Accounts (while companies do record them as depreciation elements). Depletion of renewable resource results in degradation of the environment, which adds to negative externalities resulting from pollution and fragmentation of cyclic and living systems. Degradation, or its financial counterpart in depreciation, is not recorded at all. Therefore, the indicators of production, income, consumption, saving, investment, and debts on which many economic decisions are taken are flawed, or at least incomplete and sometimes misleading, when immediate benefits are in fact losses in the long run, when we consume the reproductive functions of our capital. Although national accounting has been an important driving force in change, environmental accounting encompasses all accounting frameworks including national accounts, financial accounting standards, and accounts established to assess the costs and benefits of plans and projects. There are several approaches to economic environmental accounting at the national level. Of these approaches, one purpose is the calculation of genuine economic welfare by taking into account losses from environmental damage caused by economic activity and gains from unrecorded services provided by Nature. Here, particular attention is given to the calculation of a “Green GDP” or “Adjusted National Income” and/or “Genuine Savings” as well as natural assets value and depletion. A different view considers the damages caused to renewable natural capital and the resulting maintenance and restoration costs. Besides approaches based on benefits and costs, more descriptive accounts in physical units are produced with the purpose of assessing resource use efficiency. With regard to natural assets, the focus can be on assets directly used by the economy, or more broadly, on ecosystem capacity to deliver services, ecosystem resilience, and its possible degradation. These different approaches are not necessarily contradictory, although controversies can be noted in the literature. The discussion focuses on issues such as the legitimacy of combining values obtained with shadow prices (needed to value the elements that are not priced by the market) with the transaction values recorded in the national accounts, the relative importance of accounts in monetary vs. physical units, and ultimately, the goals for environmental accounting. These goals include assessing the sustainability of the economy in terms of conservation (or increase) of the net income flow and total economic wealth (the weak sustainability paradigm), in relation to the sustainability of the ecosystem, which supports livelihoods and well-being in the broader sense (strong sustainability). In 2012, the UN Statistical Commission adopted an international statistical standard called, the “System of Environmental-Economic Accounting Central Framework” (SEEA CF). The SEEA CF covers only items for which enough experience exists to be proposed for implementation by national statistical offices. A second volume on SEEA-Experimental Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA-EEA) was added in 2013 to supplement the SEEA CF with a research agenda and the development of tests. Experiments of the SEEA-EEA are developing at the initiative of the World Bank (WAVES), UN Environment Programme (VANTAGE, ProEcoServ), or the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) (SEEA-Ecosystem Natural Capital Accounts-Quick Start Package [ENCA-QSP]). Beside the SEEA and in relation to it, other environmental accounting frameworks have been developed for specific purposes, including material flow accounting (MFA), which is now a regular framework at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to report on the Green Growth strategy, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) guidelines for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), reporting greenhouse gas emissions and carbon sequestration. Can be considered as well the Ecological Footprint accounts, which aim at raising awareness that our resource use is above what the planet can deliver, or the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment of 2005, which presents tables and an overall assessment in an accounting style. Environmental accounting is also a subject of interest for business, both as a way to assess impacts—costs and benefits of projects—and to define new accounting standards to assess their long term performance and risks.

No abstract

Most approaches to estimate ecological value use monetary valuation. Here, we propose a different framework accounting ecological value in biophysical terms. More specifically, we are implementing the ecosystem natural capital accounting framework as an operational adaptation and extension of the UN System of Economic and Environmental Accounting/Ecosystem Accounting. The proof-of-concept study was carried out at the Rhône river watershed scale (France). Four core accounts evaluate land use, water and river condition, bio-carbon content of various stocks of biomass and its uses, and the state of ecosystem infrastructure. Integration of the various indicators allows measuring ecosystems overall capability and their degradation. The 12-year results are based on spatial–temporal geographic information and local statistics. Increasing levels of intensity of use are registered over time, that is, the extraction of resources surpasses renewal. We find that agriculture and land artificialisation are the main drivers of natural capital degradation.

Le compte satellite de la recherche In: Economie et statistique, N°118, Janvier 1980. pp. 61-65. Résumé Le compte satellite de la recherche a été mis au point conjointement par la Délégation générale à la recherche scientifique et technique et par l'INSEE. Élaboré dans les cadres du nouveau système de comptabilité nationale, ce compte met en lumière tant l'exécution de la recherche que son financement. Ces deux optiques, exécution et financement, conduisent à la définition de deux agrégats : la dépense intérieure pour la recherche et le développement expérimental et la dépense nationale pour la recherche et le développement expérimental. Abstract The satellite Research Account -The satellite research account was developed jointly by the General Delegation for Scientific and Technic Research and by the INSEE. This account, which was worked out in the framework of the new system of national accounts, sheds light both on the carrying out and the financing of research. The two points of view lead to the definition of two aggregates : spending for research and experimental development in the domestic area on the one hand, and, on the other, on the national level.Resumen La cuenta satélite de la investigación -La cuenta satélite de la investigación fué puntualizada a la vez por la Delegación general a la investigación cientifica y tecnica y por el INSEE. Elaborada dentro de los marcos del nuevo sistema de contabilidad nacional, dicha cuenta pone de manifiesto a la vez la realización de la investigación asi como su financiamiento. Ambas ópticas de realización y de financiamiento encarrilan a la definición de dos agregados: el gasto interior pro ínvestigación y el desarrollo experimental, y el gasto nacional pro investigación y el desarrollo experimental.

No abstract