Methodology

City Groups   London Group

London Group on Environmental Accounting

Photo Attribution: "Approaching London" by Trey Ratcliff - Licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Purpose

The London Group on Environmental Accounting, founded in 1993 plays a leadership role in defining best practices in the theory and practice of environmental accounting according to the international statistical standard, the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA). In particular, the London Group provides a forum for national statistical offices, international organizations, academia, research groups and others for sharing expertise in this field.
The London Group has a close relationship with the United Nations Committee of Experts on Environmental Accounting (UNCEEA) and assists the UNCEEA with advancing methodologies in support of the statistical standard and emerging policy issues and reporting initiatives, such as biodiversity, climate change, circular economy and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. To encourage the adoption of the SEEA and best practices in the field the London Group promotes the results of the Group's efforts via its website and through contributing to methodological and operational manuals, among other outputs.

Point of contact

Sven Kaumanns
Chair London Group on Environmental Accounting
c/o Federal Statistical Office of Germany / Bonn Branch Office
PO Box 170377
D-53029 Bonn
Germany
e-mail: seea@destatis.de
The London Group web site is available at https://seea.un.org/content/london-group-environmental-accounting

Year organized

1993

Participants

Participants in the London Group vary, but participants include individuals from around the world from national statistical offices, line ministries, international organizations, non-governmental organizations, academia and more. The United Nations Statistics Division serves as Secretariat.

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 City, 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
October 2012, Ottawa, Canada
November 2013, London, England
October 2014, New Delhi, India
November 2015, The Hague, The Netherlands
September 2016, Oslo, Norway
October 2017, San Jose, Costa Rica
October 2018, Dublin, Ireland
October 2019, Melbourne, Australia
November 2020, online
October 2021, online
September 2022, Siegburg, Germany

The 2023 meeting is scheduled to take place in autumn 2023 in Pretoria, South Africa.
The 2024 meeting is tentatively scheduled to take place in Alexandria, Virginia, US;
and the 2025 meeting is tentatively scheduled to take place in autumn 2025 in Tallinn, Estonia.

Topics considered

Broadly speaking, the topics covered by the Group to date include:
(a) Physical flow accounts (materials, water, energy and emissions);
(b) Asset accounts for natural resources and land;
(c) Environmental activity accounts such as for taxes, transfers and expenditures;
(d) Ecosystem accounts including measuring ecosystem extent, condition and ecosystem services;
(e) Applications and extensions of environmental accounts; and
(f) Training and implementation material.

Products

Website

All papers and presentations discussed at the meeting as well as meeting reports are posted on the London Group website: https://seea.un.org/content/london-group-environmental-accounting.

Current activities

  • • Advancing the research agenda on ecosystem accounting (SEEA-EA)
  • • Contributing to the development of methods for the valuation of ecosystem services and their applications
  • • Contributing to advancing the measurement agenda on circular economy and macroeconomic transfers based on the SEEA
  • • Supporting the production of SDG-related indicators using the SEEA
  • • Contributing to the advancement of the measurement framework for climate change based on the SEEA
  • • Contributing to the research agenda of the SNA update, in particular related to issues on the relationship between the economy and the environment

Reporting to the UN Statistical Commission via the UNCEEA

Reporting to the UN Statistical Commission

Last updated 18 October 2022


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