Ecosystem Services: Accounting Standards

Abstract

In their Research Article “Bringing ecosystem services into economic decision making: Land use in the United Kingdom” (5 July, p. [45][1]), I. J. Bateman et al. demonstrate the importance of considering nonmarket ecosystem services in economic decision-making. It is an excellent example of the potential for national-level spatial analysis of economic and environmental information to inform policy choices. The drive to connect economic and environmental information mirrors the ongoing developments in environmental-economic accounting. Over the past 6 years, the international statistics community has led work to finalize an international standard—the UN System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) ([ 1 ][2])—and to place the measurement of ecosystem services and ecosystem condition into a national accounting context ([ 2 ][3]). The development of these statistical frameworks provides the basis for compiling internationally comparable data sets at a national level on the relationship between the environment and economic activity. ![Figure][1] CREDIT: ISTOCKPHOTO Despite their common motivations, the approaches of Bateman et al. and the SEEA differ in the ways that they assign value to ecosystem services. Bateman et al. ground their analysis in welfare changes as a consequence of specific policy scenarios. The SEEA approach aims to record the “output” generated by ecosystems, given current uses of ecosystem capital; thus, monetary values represent exchange values consistent with the principles of national accounting. The SEEA approach provides a way to place welfare-based estimates in a broader context. According to Bateman et al. , the maximization of all monetary values leads to an increase of £19,606 million per year with a loss of £448 million in agricultural output [Table 3 in ([ 3 ][4])]. This loss equates to just over 2% of current UK agricultural output, and the overall impact of including nonmarket services as a proportion of GDP is an additional 1.3% ([ 3 ][4]). However, there are some important differences between the definitions of economic activity used by Bateman et al. and standard national accounting, which may limit the interpretation of such comparisons. By integrating estimates of ecosystem services within the framework of accepted economic data, the SEEA approach can provide additional impetus to mainstream these types of studies. Therefore, in addition to the calls by Bateman et al. to ensure the use of additional information on ecosystem services within standard decision-making, we call for investment to improve the quality of the underlying data within a widely accepted and integrated measurement framework such as the SEEA. The availability of quality data is an important precondition to analysis that should not be overlooked. 1. [↵][5] United Nations, European Commission, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, International Monetary Fund, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, World Bank, “System of Environmental-Economic Accounting 2012: Central Framework, prepublication (white cover)” (2012); . 2. [↵][6] United Nations, European Commission, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, World Bank, “System of Environmental-Economic Accounting 2012: Experimental Ecosystem Accounting, pre-publication (white cover)” (2013); [http://unstats.un.org/unsd/envaccounting/eea\_white\_cover.pdf][7]. 3. [↵][8] Office for National Statistics, Input-Output Supply and Use Tables—2013 Edition (2013). [1]: pending:yes [2]: #ref-1 [3]: #ref-2 [4]: #ref-3 [5]: #xref-ref-1-1 View reference 1 in text [6]: #xref-ref-2-1 View reference 2 in text [7]: http://unstats.un.org/unsd/envaccounting/eea_white_cover.pdf [8]: #xref-ref-3-1 View reference 3 in text