Twenty years ago Agenda 21 identified the need for a systems approach in support of monitoring sustainable development and green economy policy and proposed a specific solution: integrated environmental and economic accounts. The international official statistics and accounting communities have responded to this demand through the development of the System of Environmental-Economic Accounts (SEEA) which was adopted as an international statistical standard at the forty-third session of the United Nations Statistical Commission in February 2012.

The SEEA applies accounting structure, concepts, definitions and classifications to the environment statistics coherent with the System of National Accounts, the standard for economic statistics. The SEEA is a multi-purpose system that organizes and integrates environment, economic and socio-demographic statistics to answer sustainable development and green economy policy questions. It allows for the generation of consistent and comparable statistics and indicators. It is a flexible system in that its implementation can be adapted to countries' priorities, policy needs and data availability while providing a common framework with internationally agreed concepts, terms and definitions.

The SEEA creates a wealth of new information for integrated policy on sustainable development, including indicators that respond to initiatives such as ?beyond GDP? and ?Green Economy?. Many countries have relatively limited experience with taking full advantage of this new wealth of information. Therefore, exchanging the current practices in statistical systems may help others to identify new ways that environmental accounts may support their information needs.

Moreover, implementing environmental accounts can have sweeping benefits to the efficiency of the statistical system itself by creating structure and applying common standards and definitions across the multiple sources of environmental and economic data. In some cases, implementation may require changes to organizational structures and data compilation practices within the difference institutions of the government.

This session will include exchanges of lessons learned in regards to the implementation of environmental accounts within a variety of national circumstances, what has worked and what has not worked and provide guidance on how to start an implementation programme depending on countries circumstances.

The objective of this event is for governments to learn the benefits of implementing the SEEA, that is, an integrated information system on the environment and how this information can support the policy framework on sustainability and green economy. It will also discuss best practices on how to implement the SEEA and provide guidance on how to start implementation in countries with different circumstances.

Introduction by Peter Harper (Australia), Chair United Nations Committee of Experts on Environmental-Economic Accounting

Presentations by expert panellists

Geert Bruinooge, Deputy Director General, Statistics Netherlands
Pali Lehohla, Statistician-General of Statistics South Africa,
Enrico Giovannini, President, Italian Statistical Office
Jil Matheson, National Statistician, United Kingdom
Wasmalia Bivar, President Instituto Brasileiro do Geographia e Estadistica


Q&A from audience.

The methodology for this course will be primarily panel discussion. The panel will be composed of experts from national statistical systems, representing both developed and developing countries, with experience with environmental accounting. Each panellist will speak to a particular aspect of implementation and use of environmental accounts in their country and provide advice to others based on their experiences. The presentations by panelists will be followed by a moderated discussion in which participants will have the opportunity to ask questions and share their views.

Participants in this course are expected to gain an increased familiarity with the SEEA, the particular challenges and strategies for its implementation (e.g. institutional arrangements of the national statistical system and statistical production through integration of existing basic statistics), and a range of important statistics and aggregates for derivation of new policy indicators and policy applications of the accounts for sustainable development policy. For participants with limited familiarity with the SEEA, this course will provide a strong overview of its main purposes and its alignment with national and international policy frameworks.

For participants familiar with the SEEA but seeking to learn more about its implementation and application to policy, this course will provide specific examples from a range of countries and insights on strategies being employed by some of the world?s most experienced environmental accounting experts and policy makers. It is expected that participants will leave this course with a greater understanding and renewed appreciation for the benefits of environmental accounts and new strategic ideas for implementation of SEEA in their countries.