One of the major outcomes of the 15th Meeting of the UN Committee of Experts on Environmental-Economic Accounting (UNCEEA) was the Committee’s support for aligning public and private sector approaches to accounting for the environment and ecosystems.
Latest SEEA news
18 January 2023
The European Space Agency (ESA), the Environmental-Economic Accounts section of the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) and the Earth Observation for Ecosystem Accounts initiative of the
02 September 2022
In order to support the uptake of the SEEA EA in Africa, a training programme on the ARIES for SEEA was held in Kigali, Rwanda from 18-22 July 2022.
14 June 2022
As part of the NCAVES project, in parallel to the development of national level ecosystem accounts, a detailed and comprehensive set of ecosystem extent, condition and ecosystem services accounts have been piloted in India at the subnational level for the State of Karnataka.
15 March 2022
On 23 February, more than 120 participants joined the virtual side event of the 53rd Session of the UN Statistical Commission, “Closing Climate Change Data Gaps: A New G20 Data Gaps Initiative”.
15 March 2022
This high-level side event brought together the statistical and biodiversity communities to discuss the role of national statistical offices on biodiversity monitoring.
15 December 2021
The Group on Earth Observation (GEO) held its annual GEO Week from November 23rd to 26th, bringing together representatives and experts from over 100 countries around the world to discuss the role of Earth observation (EO) in achieving ambitious global targets.
15 December 2021
Early next year, the 53rd UN Statistical Commission will take place from 1-4 March 2022. The Commission provides an opportunity for the UNCEEA to inform the wider statistical community of the progress it has made over the past year and what lies ahead.
12 October 2021
UNSD has released two case studies which assess alignment between existing private sector natural capital accounting approaches and the SEEA. The case studies focus on a Holcim subsidiary in India and a Holcim quarry site in Spain.
07 October 2021
The use of GDP has been criticized since its inception given its shortcomings when it comes to the environment. While the creation of "green GDP" failed to take off in the 1990s, the international community has made a new start in integrating the environment into GDP.
05 October 2021
On Monday 4 October 2021, South Africa launched the publication Accounts for Protected Areas, 1900 to 2020. The publication was issued by Statistics South Africa in collaboration with the South African National Biodiversity Institute and the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment.
17 September 2021
On 10 September 2021, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres released the “Our Common Agenda” report, which looks ahead to the next 25 years and represents the Secretary-General’s vision on the future of global cooperation and multilateralism.
16 September 2021
01 September 2021
The latest updates in the development of SEEA accounts in Africa and Asia: High-level launch of the project in Malaysia, land accounting in the Phillipines and a technical workshop with ARIES in Senegal.
28 April 2021
IBGE – the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics released on 28 April another experimental ecosystem accounting study.
26 March 2021
The high-level webinar on the SEEA EA for countries in Latin America took place on Thursday, 4 February 2021. The Webinar was co-organized by the UN-ECLAC Statistics Division and the UN Statistics Division (UNSD) and was attended by over 117 participants, including 5 heads of NSOs, from 16 countries in Latin America.
26 March 2021
Two side events were recently organized by the SEEA community during the 52nd session of the United Nations Statistical Commission: (1) From experimental ocean accounts to SEEA-Ocean; and (2) High Level Discussion on Measuring the Sustainability of Tourism.
28 January 2021
Held over three days, the NCAVES India Forum 2021 was the culmination of the impressive work undertaken in India following the SEEA Ecosystem Accounting as part of the three-year E.U.-funded NCAVES project.
19 December 2020
The year 2020 has been unlike any other. Yet, as countries look towards 2021 and begin their recoveries from the pandemic, there is growing recognition that new measures are needed to move beyond GDP, and towards a system that considers all of humanity’s assets—natural, human, social and institutional.
02 December 2020
Pretoria, South Africa, 2 December 2020 - Today South Africa launches its first ecosystem accounts at national level, under the publication, Land and Terrestrial Ecosystem Accounts, 1990 to 2014.
05 November 2020
IBGE recently released ecosystem accounts for threatened species in Brazil, as part of the EU-funded Natural Capital Accounting and Valuation of Ecosystem Services project.
28 October 2020
The global consultation on the complete draft of the System Environmental-Economic Accounting—Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EA) has been launched and is ongoing until the end of November 2020.
23 October 2020
Since the last update on the SEEA EEA revision process in August 2020 all of the chapters of the revised SEEA EA have been drafted and the complete draft has been submitted for the second global consultation.
30 September 2020
NSO India published its third annual report on environmental-economic accounts, on 30th September, 2020 formally titled “EnviStats India 2020 Vol. II - Environment Accounts”.
24 September 2020
Brazil recently released ecosystem extent accounts for 2000-2018, which show that Brazilian terrestrial biomes lost about 500 thousand km2 of their natural areas.
04 August 2020
The global material footprint is growing rapidly, outpacing population and economic growth. Material footprint entails the volume of biomass, metals, non-metallic minerals and fossil fuels that we extract. Materials fuel our economies and underpin human development and well-being. The global extraction of these materials has more than tripled since 1970 and continues to grow at an accelerated rate.
03 August 2020
For the third consecutive year, as part of the NCAVES project, Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa presented the progress made in piloting ecosystem accounts, during the first two sessions of the 2020 Virtual Forum of Experts in SEEA Experimental Ecosystem Accounting.
23 July 2020
A new pilot study of ecosystem accounting in South Africa maps, measures and values a suite of ecosystem services for the province of KwaZulu-Natal.
06 April 2020
The first global consultation on individual chapters of the revised SEEA EEA was launched.
06 April 2020
Australia, an international leader in the development of ecosystem accounting, has strong domestic support for the SEEA EEA Revision process. Australian scientists and other members of its academic community participate actively in the technical working groups that have been developed to inform the revised standards.
01 April 2020
23 March 2020
Earlier this month, we went live with our new knowledge base. Designed to be an easy-to-use document and media repository, we hope this new knowledge base will become a “go-to” library when you are looking for any resources to do with the SEEA and natural capital accounting.
12 March 2020
The last few weeks saw much recognition of the SEEA Experimental Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EEA) and its revision process in leading academic journals, and its importance in light of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework, which will be agreed at the COP-15 in October in Kunming, China.
13 December 2019
On December 4th, the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) released the results of the SEEA-Mexico (economic and ecological accounts of Mexico), including accounting tables in physical and monetary terms on the impact of economic activities on the environment (air, water and soil).
09 December 2019
The United Nations Statistics Division and the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) of China in collaboration with the United Nations Environment and European Union jointly organized an International Seminar on Natural Capital Accounting in Beijing, China from 12-14 November.
06 December 2019
“Earth Observations in Support of Environmental-Economic Accounting: understanding the value of ecosystems to people”, a side-event of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) Week 2019 took place on November 4 in Canberra. The event provided an opportunity for exploring the contribution of the SEEA to sustainable development.
06 December 2019
The 25th London Group meeting on Environmental Accounting was held in Melbourne on the 7th – 10th October 2019. The meeting provided an opportunity for delegates to share experiences in the development and implementation of environmental accounts, and to discuss a wide range of issues related to the System of Environmental-Economic Accounts (SEEA).
18 November 2019
Find the latest resources for the SEEA News & Notes, Issue 8, a greenhouse gas emission dashboard of New Zealand and the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) biome map, and more.
30 October 2019
Indicators 15.9.1 and 12.b.1 now include SEEA implementation as a component. The proposals for these indicators were approved at the tenth meeting of the IAEG-SDGs and the indicators have been reclassified from Tier III to Tier II.
23 October 2019
Find the latest resources for the SEEA News & Notes, Issue 7, including India's environmental accounts and the results of the European Court of Auditor's audit of European SEEA accounts, and more!
21 October 2019
The Scoping Workshop on the SEEA and Business Accounting, a part of the EU-funded NCAVES project, took place on 16-17 October 2019 and explored potential synergies in bringing together public and private sector approaches in terms of natural capital accounting.
21 October 2019
Natural Capital Accounting in support of Land Degradation Neutrality, a side-event within the CoP14 of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), provided an overview of the SEEA-EEA and illustrated how the various types of accounts can support both implementation and monitoring needs of the convention.
21 October 2019
The National Statistical Office of India recently released its second environmental-economic accounting publication. This publication expands upon soil quality and water asset accounts to include two ecosystem services – crop provisioning and nature-based recreation – that have been assessed and valued at the national scale.
21 October 2019
Recent developments of the SEEA Experimental Ecosystem Accounting revision include the 2019 Forum of Experts on SEEA Experimental Ecosystem Accounting, the Technical Expert Meeting on the revision of the SEEA EEA 2019, the Technical Expert Meeting (TEM), the drafting of discussion papers by experts, and more.
04 October 2019
This month, UNSD and partners are launching a Regional Training Programme on the Production of the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting-Energy (SEEA-Energy) Accounts and the Use of Energy Information for Policy for countries of Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia (EECCA) and South-eastern Europe (SEE).
27 September 2019
The African Centre for Statistics of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) held a regional seminar on the compilation and application of the SEEA energy and forest accounts from 3-6 September 2019 in Addis Ababa.
23 September 2019
Sir Bob Watson discusses the case for mainstreaming biodiversity considerations into government decisions, the IPBES global assessment and the post-2020 global biodiversity framework.
07 August 2019
A Regional Training Program on the SEEA Experimental Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EEA) for countries in Africa has just been launched as an activity under the “Natural Capital Accounting and Valuation of Ecosystem Services” project funded by the European Union.
19 July 2019
Juha Siikamaki discusses the valuation of ecosystem services in the context of the Experimental Ecosystem Accounting revision and efforts to protect biodiversity.
12 April 2019
More than 70 experts from 33 countries, several international organisations and NGOs participated in the February meeting held in Geneva.