12 March 2012

London Group on Environmental Accounting

Purpose:

To play a leadership role in defining international best practices in the theory and practice of environmental accounting within the framework of the System of National Accounts. To provide a forum for the sharing of national and international expertise in this field. To assist the United Nations Committee of Experts on Environmental Accounting (UNCEEA) with advancing methodologies and developing statistical standards for environmental accounting. To encourage the adoption of statistical standards and best practices in the field by promoting the results of the Group's efforts via website, concepts and methods manuals, operational manuals and other means.

Year organized:

1994

Participants:

Austria, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Oman, Philippines, South Africa, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States of America, European Environment Agency, Statistical Office of the European Communities (Eurostat), Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), International Monetary Fund (IMF), Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), United Nations Environment Programme, United Nations Statistics Division, the World Bank, UN ESCWA.

Meetings:

March 1994, London, England
March 1995, Washington, D.C., USA
May 1996, Stockholm, Sweden
June 1997, Ottawa, Canada
May 1998, Fontevraud, France
November 1999, Canberra, Australia
May 2001 Voorburg, the Netherlands
November 2003, Rome, Italy
September 2004, Copenhagen, Denmark
June 2006, New York, USA
March 2007, Pretoria, South Africa
December 2007, Rome, Italy
October 2008, Brussels, Belgium
April 2009, Canberra, Australia
November 2009, Wiesbaden, Germany
October 2010, Santiago, Chile
September 2011, Stockholm, Sweden

Topics considered:

Broadly speaking, the topics covered by the Group to date include:
(a) Physical flow accounts (materials, water and energy);
(b) Asset accounts for natural resources and land;
(c) Environmental activity accounts and related flows;
(d) Ecosystem accounts;
(e) Applications of environmental accounts;
(f) Developing training and implementation material.

Products:

System of Environmental-Economic Accounting for Water (SEEAW) adopted at the thirty-eighth session of the United Nations Statistical Commission as an interim international statistical standard (see report of the UN Statistical Commission)

Revision of the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA), Draft Version for United Nations Statistical Commission, January 2012

Website:

All papers and presentations discussed at the meeting as well as meeting reports are posted on the London Group website.

New activities:

Following the finalization of the SEEA Central Framework, the London Group priority objectives are:
(a) Prepare, review and comment promotion and training material including the Compilers Manual on the SEEA -Water and International Recommendations for Water Statistics and the SEEA-Energy and the International Recommendations for Energy Statistics;
(b) Contribute to the development of SEEA Extensions and Applications;
(c) Contribute to the development of SEEA Experimental Ecosystem accounts.

The next meeting of the Group is scheduled to take place in October in Ottawa Canada.

Point of contact:

Mark de Haan
Chair, London Group on Environmental Accounting
Statistics Netherlands
e-mail: MHAA@cbs.nl

The London Group web site is available at http://unstats.un.org/unsd/envaccounting/ceea/londongroup/default.asp

Reporting to the UN Statistical Commission

• Report of 2012
• Report of 2011
• Report of 2009
• Report of 2008
• Report of 2007
• Report of 2004