REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL Regulation (EU) No 691/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 July 2011 on European environmental economic accounts
Date: 2013-12-09
Institutions: European Commission
Subjects: EU Member State, EU statistics, disclosure of information, environmental standard, environmental statistics, exchange of information













EUR-Lex - 52013DC0864 - EN











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52013DC0864

REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL Regulation (EU) No 691/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 July 2011 on European environmental economic accounts /* COM/2013/0864 final */









REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE
EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL
Regulation (EU) No 691/2011 of the
European Parliament and of the Council
of 6 July 2011
on European environmental economic accounts

Background to this report
Article 10 of Regulation
(EU) No 691/2011 (the “Regulation”) requires the Commission to submit a report
as follows
“Article 10
Report and review
By 31 December 2013 and
every 3 years thereafter, the Commission shall submit a report on the
implementation of this Regulation to the European Parliament and the Council.
That report shall evaluate in particular the quality of the data transmitted,
the data collection methods, the administrative burden on the Member States and
on the respondent units, as well as the feasibility and effectiveness of those
statistics.
The report shall, if
appropriate and taking into account the findings referred to in Article 4(2),
be accompanied by proposals:
- for introducing new
environmental economic account modules, such as Environmental Protection Expenditure
and Revenues (EPER)/Environmental Protection Expenditure Accounts (EPEA),
Environmental Goods and Services Sector (EGSS), Energy Accounts,
Environmentally Related Transfers (subsidies), Resource Use and Management
Expenditure Accounts (RUMEA), Water Accounts (quantitative and qualitative),
Waste Accounts, Forest Accounts, Ecosystem services Accounts, Economy-Wide
Material Stock Accounts (EW-MSA) and the measurement of unused excavated
earthen materials (including soil),
- designed to further improve
data quality and data collection methods, thereby improving the coverage and
comparability of data and reducing the administrative burden on business and
administration.”
This Regulation was the first Union Regulation on environmental
accounting. It introduced three modules 
·                        
air emission accounts showing 14 different gases by
64 industry groups and by households
·                        
environmental taxes distinguishing 4 tax types - on
energy, transport (other than fuel) pollution, resources - all broken down into
64 industry groups, households and non-residents who pay these taxes.
·                        
material flow accounts for 50 material types
showing domestic extraction, imports and exports. Then, Domestic Material
Consumption = domestic extraction + imports – exports, for each type of material
and in total.
These three were the modules
that were most mature statistically and they correspond to important
environmental policy needs; air emissions and climate change, economic
instruments to limit pollution, and resource efficiency. 
At the time this first Regulation
was discussed in and subsequently adopted by the European Parliament and the Council,
users in the Parliament and the Commissions DGs emphasised that these first
three modules were to be seen as a beginning and that the policy needs for
environmental accounting went much further. The European Parliament actually
inserted into Article 10 (above) a list of new possible modules as priorities
for future development.
The Regulation set the date of
submitting this first report at 31 December 2013, which allowing the necessary
time for adoption, translation and other processes means that this report had
to be drafted at a time when the first data delivered under the Regulation was
not yet available. A proper assessment of the quality of the data, the data
collection methods, etc. will be carried out in early 2014.
Data transmission for the
first three modules is good and improving
The first formal data
transmission under the Regulation is due on 30 September 2013 for the modules
on air emissions and environmentally related taxes and on 31 December 2013 for
economy-wide material flow accounts. It is therefore not possible within the
deadlines for this report to comment in detail on the quality of that data. 
Moreover 6 Member States (Spain, France, Cyprus, Malta, Austria, Poland) were granted partial or total derogations (Commission
Implementing Decision, 2012/691/EU of 6 November 2012, OJ L308 of 8.11.2012,
p.23) allowing them to provide data up to two years later. However for some of
these countries progress has been better than expected which will allow some of
them to comply more or less with the requirements of the Regulation.
By the relevant amendment of
the EEA Agreement, Annex XXI, Norway and Iceland are bound by the requirements
of the Regulation, the latter country with a derogation of two years, while Liechtenstein has been exempted.
At the time of writing this
report, the formal deadlines for the delivery of the data to the first data
collection under the regulation have only just or not yet passed. However, a
large number of countries have already supplied a considerable amount of data
on a voluntary basis: by mid-2013 about 20 countries had supplied complete or
almost complete data for the environmental taxes and the air emissions accounts
and 24 had supplied the material flow accounts. Progressively the coverage
(number of countries and degree of completion of individual tables), the
timeliness and reliability have consistently improved.
Eurostat and the national
statistical institutes work together in working groups and special thematic
task forces to ensure a high level of accuracy, coherence and comparability of
the data.
The results of the voluntary
data collections are published on Eurostat’s web site and in various
publications.
Formal quality assessment in
the first half of 2014
A format for the quality report,
which article 7 of the Regulation requires the Member States to provide to the
Commission (Eurostat), has been developed within Working Groups and the first
report will follow the first data delivery at the end of 2013. All aspects of
quality will be covered: timeliness, comparability, accessibility, clarity,
coherence, completeness and reliability. The report will also contain a
structured description of sources and methods used to compile the data. The
report will be discussed with Member States in spring 2014 and will form the
basis for a plan to further improve data quality, including comparability and
timeliness.
Uses of the data
Environmental accounts data are
used in a variety of policy applications both at national and EU level. One
particularly prominent example is the Domestic Material Consumption from the
material flow accounts which was adopted as the main headline indicator for the
EU 2020 Resource Efficiency flagship initiative. The air emission accounts
contribute to our understanding of the economic sectors responsible for
greenhouse gas emissions that lead to climate change and the environment taxes
(especially energy taxes) are an important economic instrument to reduce
emissions and also included under the resource efficiency indicators. These
data are especially pertinent in the context of policies developed under the
Europe 2020 strategy that aim at both reaching climate and energy objectives
while ensuring sustained economic growth.
All the data received is included in several publications and analyses
and can be consulted on Eurostat’s publicly accessible web site.
http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/environmental_accounts/introduction
The web site also contains
background information, methodological handbooks and compilation guides, as
well as the various publications of the existing data. Still, these three
modules can be further promoted as they become more established, to further
stimulate their up-take by users who may not be familiar with their added
value. As they are based on existing datasets, it is not uncommon that users go
directly to the original data, without being fully aware of the advantages of
environmental accounts, in particular the possibility for integrated
environmental economic analysis. For example, air emissions accounts are still
relatively less widely used as compared to greenhouse gas inventories or the
emissions data under the LRTAP Convention. Another example can be
environmentally related taxes whereby the datasets under the Regulation provide
a further breakdown by the economic activity paying the taxes, which is a
useful added parameter for detailed fiscal analysis. Therefore, more efforts
should be devoted to popularizing the use of the datasets in targeted
publications and statistical events, as transmission of data becomes more
routine under the Regulation and as full completeness and longer time series
are progressively available.
A lot of the practical use of
the data is made at EU level and by specialised research institutes. In some
countries the data seem to be widely used, but some other national statistical
institutes report that relatively little use is made of the data by national
governments and its wider use should therefore be encouraged. Use of the data
can be expected to increase as the coverage improves in terms of number of
countries and length of time series available to analyse trends.
Environmental accounts are
also being developed at international level
The environmental accounts
required under this regulation are designed as “satellite accounts” to the
conventional national accounts: the European System of national and regional
Accounts (ESA) and the world-level System of National Accounts (SNA). The three
accounts/modules included in the first Regulation are also included in the
world-level System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) which was
adopted as an international statistical standard by the United Nations
Statistical Commission in March 2012 (supported and published by UN, European
Commission, OECD, World Bank, IMF and FAO). Eurostat and several EU countries
made major contributions to drafting the SEEA.
Key aspects of these accounts
are being advanced also by the OECD and UNEP green growth strategies and by the
World Bank initiatives on Natural capital accounting.
Administrative burden is
small
To fulfill the data
requirements of the Regulation, countries’ national statistical institutes can
make use of existing basic data which they then adapt to the classifications of
national accounts.
For instance the air emissions
accounts start from work already done for the air emission inventories which
are required by the reporting under the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC) and under the UNECE Convention on Long-range
Transboundary Air Pollution (CLRTAP); the environmental accounts then expand
those to fit the classifications and concepts of the input-output tables of the
national accounts, so that they can be aligned with statistics on the
industrial and service sectors of the economy.
Environmental taxes are
identified within the list of national taxes reported already by countries to
the Commission (Eurostat). 
For the material flow accounts,
data on domestic extraction is taken from agricultural statistics (for biomass
production), from data on mining and quarrying for the minerals, from energy
statistics for fossil energy materials and from external trade statistics for
the imports and exports. 
By re-using existing data, the
additional response burden on enterprises is extremely small. The workload is
largely within the national statistical institutes to process existing data and
enhance the analytical usefulness of the basic data by aligning it with the
concepts and classifications of national accounts. In most countries this typically
represents about two full-time people in total for the first three modules. To
develop new modules and to maintain and further enhance the quality of the
environmental accounts it is essential that the national administrations ensure
that sufficient resources are made available.
Eurostat assists countries
to implement the first three modules
Eurostat has been assisting the Member States who needed it to
implement the first three modules through a variety of means, including:
·                        
Grants for pilot studies,
·                        
Facilitating sharing of experience between
countries,
·                        
Training courses under the European Statisticians
Training Program
·                        
Handbooks and manuals.
·                        
Stream-lining and rationalising the way data will
be transmitted to Eurostat for the first three modules.
Three additional modules have
been proposed
Eurostat and the Member States continued to develop new modules in
statistical working groups. In the period 2011-2012 methodologies were
developed and pilot tests were carried out, in particular regarding the first
three modules listed in Article 10: environmental protection expenditure, environmental
goods and services sector and physical energy flow accounts. These were judged
the most mature from a conceptual point of view and the necessary basic
statistics exist. For these new modules too, there is little or no response
burden for enterprises or households but rather the work will be carried out by
the national statistical offices to align and adjust data already collected for
other purposes (statistical or administrative). The new modules also correspond
to EU policy priorities of green growth and resource efficiency
The Commission (Eurostat) Eurostat
is assisting the countries to prepare for the three new modules with grants,
exchange of experience, handbooks, etc. as in previous years for the first
three modules. For example: supported
by such grants, the module on environmental protection expenditure has been the
subject of pilot tests in 20 Member States since 2001; EGSS pilot studies have been
carried out in 12 Member States and energy accounts have been tested in 12
Member States. In addition some countries have carried out pilot studies
without EU financial support. Norway and Switzerland also participated actively
and shared their experience. In total significant experience with these modules
exists and has been s shared by Member States in technical meetings. It was
largely taken into account which allowed the European Statistical System
Committee to give a positive opinion on the draft Regulation on
7 February 2013. A catalogue of the pilot studies is available on
Eurostat’s web site here:
http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/environmental_accounts/introduction
On this basis the Commission adopted
on 2 May 2013 a proposal for an amending regulation (COM(2013)247) with the
purpose of adding these three modules to the first Regulation. At the end of
2013 discussions of the draft amending regulation were advancing well in
Council and European Parliament.
Further modules being
prepared
Work is also continuing on most of the other accounts listed in Article
10: 
·                        
Environmentally Related Transfers (subsidies),
where a task force of experienced Member States is developing a framework for
data collection.
·                        
Resource Use and Management Expenditure Accounts
(RUMEA), where the focus has been on resource management activities in
conjunction with the implementation of the new module on EGSS.
·                        
Water flow accounts, where conceptual work has
advanced but is hampered by a lack of basic data.
·                        
Forest Accounts, through
the development of Integrated Environmental and Economic
Accounting for Forests consistent with SEEA.
These are potential candidates
for a third “batch” of modules.
All these potential modules
were part of the European Strategy for Environmental Accounting adopted in 2008
by the Statistical Programme Committee which is made up of the heads of all the
national statistical institutes. This ESEA 2008 is currently being updated to
reflect the adoption of the first Regulation and the start of the second as
well as to take a fresh look at new policy needs. The Member States National
Statistical Institutes are currently reluctant to accept too many more modules
because of budget cuts and staff shortages. They recommend instead focusing first
on improving quality and promoting the use of the first three and second three
modules.
Ecosystems services accounts
and biodiversity are much in demand politically, but from a measurement point
of view are at a very early stage of pioneering development and research which
requires multi-disciplinary teams including biologists, environmental
specialists, cartographers as well as statisticians. For this reason it is
considered preferable to leave the lead to the European Environment Agency. The
role of National Statistical Institutes at this stage would be mainly to
provide basic data - such as agricultural production, land use (LUCAS) data and
regional statistics - as well as to provide advice on statistical issues when
needed.
Improved timeliness needed
Another new request emerging from
users is improved timeliness. The first three modules were conceived as fairly
detailed structural data to analyse the mutual interactions between the economy
and the environment in the selected areas covered by the first Regulation.
Following the introduction of the European Semester, the Union’s economic and
fiscal policy planning exercise, there is a wish to include environmental
aspects into the semester alongside conventional economic data such as GDP.
Eurostat is working with national statistical institutes to see in which ways
these environmental accounts could be compiled earlier. Considerable progress
has been made both in the countries and in Eurostat to compile and process the
accounts faster. However this is unlikely to produce the level of timeliness
required for the Semester. Eurostat is therefore also examining ways to make
flash estimates for some main indicators much earlier (e.g. estimates of CO2
emissions at t+4 months calculated from Eurostat’s monthly statistics of energy
use).
The way forward
The Commission (Eurostat) will
thoroughly check the quality of the data received for the first three modules
at the end of 2013 and suggest improvements to individual countries, or to the
overall methodology, where needed. 
Discussions on the second “batch”
of modules will continue in 2014 in the European Parliament and Council.
Statisticians will continue to prepare for the practical implementation of
these three additional modules.
The European Strategy for
Environmental Accounts will be revised in conjunction with main user groups and
with the national statistical institutes. The target date for completion of
this new ESEA is mid- 2014.
The Commission and the Member
States administrations will continue to work together to ensure greater
visibility and use of the results of the environmental accounts.