On the International Standards and Recommendations for Recording Environmental Activities in the National Accounting

This article analyzes key provisions of international recommendations «SERIEE. Environmental Protection Expenditure Accounts - Compilation Guide (Methods and nomenclatures)»  (hereinafter referred to as the SERIEE manual) concerning modern  requirements to statistics of natural resources and environmental  management. This document was prepared by the European  Commission and Eurostat in 2002; SERIEE fully stands for European  system for the collection of economic information on the  environment (the abbreviation SERIEE is based on the name in  French: le Systeme europeen pour le rassemblement d informations  economiques sur l’environnement).The 2002 SERIEE manual is based on the initial versions of the integrated System of  Environmental and Economic Accounting, SEEA, which, in turn, is a  set of the SNA (SNA-SEEA) satellite accounts. The authors believe that despite the fact that in 2012 the UN Statistical Commission adopted international standard in the form of the SEEA Central  Framework (CF SEEA-2012), the 2002 SERIEE manual without doubt continues to be an interesting international guideline both  methodologically and organizationally. It allows to significantly  improve the process of conducting summary valuations and long- term planning of environmental measures based on macroeconomic  aggregates. The authors reviewed and assessed the system of five tables of consolidated accounts, designated as B, B1, A, C and C1, presented in the manual. This is done within the general system of  environmental protection expenditure accounts (EPEA) that provides  consistent, coherent, comprehensive and detailed reflection of  environmental costs at the macrostatistical level - from production  and consumption to financing. In other words, the characteristic of  the different operations with the use of the main aggregates of the  SNA-SEEA and EPEA, such as output, intermediate consumption, value added, income, final consumption, savings, export, import, etc. The paper reveals the authors’ interpretation of the fundamental structural unit of SNS-SEEA/EPEA - total national costs of  environment protection. The paper considers not only principles and  methods that are common for the national accounting, but also the  specific features related to recording environmental protection by production and consumption of the relevant goods (products) and services. In particular, the authors examined the macro level  characteristics of the so-called connected and adapted products  (eco-oriented and eco-adaptive goods). The article analyses specific  features related to recording general taxation and subsidies, and the  so-called earmarked (related) taxes, fees and charges, aimed at  improving environmental protection and streamlining of  environmental management. It is noted that all of the  abovementioned operations are recorded not only by institutional  sectors of economy and kinds of activity, but also by specialist,  secondary and ancillary producers, which is a conceptual and indispensable requirement for implementation of the SNA-SEEA.
At the end of the article there are brief conclusions and recommendations concerning prompt elimination of the existing defects and possible adapted use of best practices in this sphere.

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