REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL on the implementation of Regulation (EU) No 691/2011 on European environmental economic accounts
Date: 2022-12-15
Institutions: European Commission, Eurostat
Subjects: EU environmental policy, EU statistics, application of EU law, data collection, economic statistics, environmental economics, environmental protection, environmental statistics, national accounts, sustainable development

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   EUROPEAN COMMISSION  Brussels, 15.12.2022  COM(2022) 718 final  REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL on the implementation of Regulation (EU) No 691/2011 on European environmental economic accounts  
 
 
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REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND 
THE COUNCIL 

on the implementation of Regulation (EU) No 691/2011 on European environmental 
economic accounts 

(1) 

INTRODUCTION 

Regulation  (EU)  No 691/2011  on  European  environmental  economic  accounts1  (the 
Regulation)  introduced  a  common  framework  for  collecting,  compiling,  transmitting  and 
evaluating European environmental economic accounts. Article 10 of the Regulation provides 
for the following: 

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. 

This  is  the  fourth  report  fulfilling  this  obligation.  The  previous  reports  were  published  in 
20192, 20163 and 20134. 

(2) 

ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMIC ACCOUNTS 

The  European  Green  Deal  resets  the  Commission’s  commitment  to  tackling  climate  and 
environmental-related  challenges5.  Europe  aims  to  be  the  first  climate-neutral  continent  by 
becoming a modern, resource-efficient economy. The European Green Deal will improve the 
health and  well-being  of  people  across the EU,  as well as that  of  future  generations,  with  a 
range  of  actions  on  climate,  environment  and  oceans,  energy,  transport,  agriculture,  finance 
and regional development, industry and research & innovation. The European Green Deal is 
an  integral  part  of  the  Commission’s  strategy  to  implement  the  2030  Agenda  and  the  UN 
Sustainable Development Goals. 

Environmental  economic  accounts,  or  environmental  accounts  for  short,  are  a  powerful, 
multipurpose  information  framework  addressing  the  sustainability  aspects  of  our  economic 
behaviour. Mainstream economic statistics, such as national accounts, which underpin GDP, 
do  not  take  account  of  environmental  aspects  in  production,  consumption,  investment  or 

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5 

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:02011R0691-20140616. 
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?qid=1583142055591&uri=CELEX:52020DC0056. 
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?qid=1478531808092&uri=CELEX:52016DC0663. 
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:52013DC0864. 
https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/info/files/european-green-deal-communication_en.pdf 

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financing.  Environmental  accounts  enable  the  integration  of  economic  and  environmental 
aspects to complete this picture. 

The  key  feature  of  environmental  accounts  is  integration.  This  encompasses  both  the 
integration  of  environmental  and  economic  aspects,  and  the  integration  into  a  consistent 
economic  accounting  system  of  a  range  of  key  thematic  environmental  aspects  such  as 
(i) energy, taxation and air emissions; (ii) material extractions and waste; and (iii) government 
and business expenditure and investment. This integration fits nicely in the holistic paradigm 
of the European Green Deal. The accounting approach is useful because: 

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it reuses available data and thus allows new information to be produced with limited 
administrative burden on businesses and members of the public; 

it  enables  high  quality  information  to  be  produced  by  combining  and  integrating 
source data into robust estimates. 

At  EU  level,  European  environmental  accounts  underpin  the  supranational  dimension  of 
environmental issues and provide a systematic approach and coverage across Member States 
and  environmental  topics  that  enable  policy  assessment  and  comparisons  across  Member 
States. 

European  environmental  accounts  are  based  on  the  international  standard  System  of 
Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA)6. This standard was produced and released by 
the  United  Nations,  the  European  Commission  (Eurostat),  the  Food  and  Agriculture 
Organisation  of  the  UN,  the  Organisation  for  Economic  Cooperation  and  Development 
(OECD), the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank group. 

The  Regulation  establishes  the  European  environmental  accounts.  The  Regulation  has  EEA 
relevance7. It structures the accounts in modules, as follows: 

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Air emissions accounts: the emissions into the atmosphere of six greenhouse gases 
(including  CO2  and  CO2  from  biomass  used  as  a  fuel)  and  seven  air  pollutants 
(including ammonia and fine dust particles), with a breakdown covering 64 emitting 
industries plus households. 

Environmentally-related taxes by economic activity: environmental taxes for four 
broad groups: energy, transport, pollution and resources, with a breakdown covering 
64 paying industries plus households and non-residents. 

Economy-wide  material  flow  accounts:  the  amounts  of  physical  inputs  into  the 
economy, material accumulation in the economy, and outputs to other economies or 
back to the environment. 

https://seea.un.org/ 

It  covers  Norway  and  Iceland.  Liechtenstein  has  a  complete  derogation.  The  bilateral  Statistical 
Agreement of Switzerland with the European Union, includes the Regulation since December 2019. 

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Environmental protection expenditure accounts: spending by  economic units for 
environmental protection purposes. 

Environmental  goods  and  services  sector  accounts:  output,  value  added  and 
exports of goods and services that have been specifically designed and produced  to 
protect the environment or manage resources. The employment associated with these 
activities is also reported. 

Physical  energy  flow  accounts:  flows  of  energy  from  the  environment  into  the 
economy (extraction of natural inputs), within the economy (manufacture and use of 
energy  products)  and  from  the  economy  to  the  environment  (discharge  of  energy 
residuals). 

Member States have been obliged to submit data to the Commission (Eurostat) under Annexes 
I to III since 2013 and Annexes IV to VI since 2017. 

(3) 

ACTIVITIES SINCE THE LAST REPORT 

LEGAL FRAMEWORK 

The Commission adopted Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2022/125 of 19 November 
2021 amending Annexes I to V to Regulation (EU) No 691/20118. This Delegated Regulation 
updates the technical specifications of five of the six existing modules, listed in the previous 
section,  with  a  view  to  producing  faster  information  (shorter  transmission  deadlines)  and 
updating the lists of characteristics. In particular, the latter includes: (a) requesting additional 
breakdowns of CO2 taxes; (b) requesting additional breakdowns of data for the environmental 
sector  and  on  environmental  expenditure;  (c)  requesting 
total 
environmental sector (as opposed to the market part of the environmental sector); (d) updating 
the  technical  lists  of  material  flows  and  air  emission  gases;  and  (e)  simplifying  information 
requirements on the economic industries of the environmental sector as well as on the imports 
and exports of materials. 

information  on 

the 

Those  changes  improve  the  ability  to  monitor  progress  towards  a  green,  competitive  and 
resilient  circular  economy  and  towards  the  Sustainable  Development  Goals  relevant  to  the 
EU, as well as to support climate and pollution policies. The changes also make it easier for 
users  to  interpret  data  and  allow  statisticians  to  accurately  measure  the  total  national 
expenditure on environmental protection. To reduce the reporting burden for Member States, 
the  required  level  of  detail  of  the  NACE  classification  have  been  reduced  for  the 
environmental  goods  and  services  sector  accounts  and  for  the  environmental  protection 
expenditure accounts. 

Furthermore, on 11 July  2022 the Commission adopted the proposal for  a Regulation of the 
European  Parliament  and  of  the  Council  (COM(2022) 329)9  amending  Regulation  (EU) 

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https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=uriserv:OJ.L_.2022.020.01.0040.01.ENG. 
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=COM:2022:329:FIN. 

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691/2011  as  regards  introducing  new  environmental  accounts  modules.  This  proposal 
introduces three additional modules: 

  Forest accounts, encompassing asset accounts of forest  resources (wooded land and 
timber on wooded land) and economic activity in the forest and logging industry. 

  Environmental  subsidies  and  similar  transfers  accounts,  about  unrequited 
payments  from  general  government  to  other  institutional  sectors  and  from  non-
residents (rest of the world) for the purpose of protecting the environment or reducing 
the use and extraction of natural resources. 

  Ecosystem accounts, about ecosystem extent, ecosystem condition (i.e. degradation) 
and  ecosystem  services  (crop  provision,  pollination,  wood  provision,  air  filtration, 
global climate regulation, local climate regulation and nature-based tourism). 

These three modules are expected to increase the information available to the EU for several 
European Green Deal actions and goals, including: its climate neutrality ambition, the ‘Farm 
to  fork’  strategy,  the  new  EU  forest  strategy,  EU  biodiversity  strategy  for  2030  and  nature 
restoration law, the zero pollution action plan and Sustainable Development Goals indicators. 

The  new  modules  will  also  boost  the  six  initial  modules,  as  new  and  old  accounts  can  be 
combined  to  derive  new  indicators.  For  instance,  the  new  ecosystem  accounts  can  be 
combined  with  existing  air  emission  accounts  to  measure  carbon  sequestration  versus 
emissions  of  greenhouse  gases.  There  is  also  a  link  between  ecosystem  accounts,  forest 
accounts and economy-wide material flow accounts as regards the extraction of biomass. 

The Commission started to prepare its proposal, with the help of expert groups (participating 
national  statistical  offices),  in  2020.  The  modules  on  forest  accounts  and  environmental 
subsidies and similar transfers are based on pre-existing voluntary transmissions (respectively, 
since  2016  and  2015).  The  administrative  burden  for  Member  States  already  reporting  on 
these accounts will be minimal. 

The  module  on  ecosystem  accounts  will  be  new  for  most  Member  States.  The  Commission 
selected it due to its high policy relevance for nature, biodiversity and zero pollution, as well 
as  its  potential  for  other  policies,  including  the  European  Semester.  It  represents  the  first 
implementation  in  the EU of the UN  SEEA Ecosystem  accounts, adopted by UN  Statistical 
Commission  in  March  2021.  Eurostat  has  been  gaining  experience  and  developing 
methodologies  under  the  EU-wide  project  INCA  (‘Integrated  natural  capital  accounting’) 
since 201510. The three new modules benefit from Member States pilot projects and tests co-
financed with Commission (Eurostat) grants (24 grants awarded between 2015 and 2021, and 
support actions planned for following years). 

10    Project  INCA  was  accompanied  by  the  Mapping  and  Assessment  of  Ecosystem  Services  by  the  Joint 

Research Centre. 

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DATA COLLECTION METHODS AND ADMINISTRATIVE BURDEN 

Environmental accounts do not generally require new microdata to be collected as they mostly 
make use of data already held by national authorities, complemented with additional estimates 
where needed. In addition to national accounts data, environmental accounts collate data from 
a  wide  range  of  sources,  e.g.  underlying  statistics  on  energy,  transport,  agriculture, 
government  expenditure  and  taxation,  as  well  as  some  non-statistical  sources.  However, 
occasionally,  households  or  business  surveys  have  to  be  adapted  or  expanded  to  provide  a 
data basis for individual items in the environmental accounts. 

To fulfil the data requirements set  out in  the Regulation,  Member States can adjust existing 
data  to  bring  it  into  line  with  the  concepts  in  the  System  of  Environmental-Economic 
Accounting  Central  Framework  (SEEA  CF)  and  SEEA  Ecosystem  Accounts  (SEEA  EA). 
This  may  require  specific  work  from  Member  States.  The  fact  that  environmental  accounts 
reuse existing data means that, as long as data sources exist and are maintained, any additional 
burden  on  businesses  and  households  is  very  small.  Countries  can  also  choose  to  set  up 
specific data collection processes for environmental accounts, which will help to improve data 
quality.  One  such  practice,  involving  the  environmental  goods  and  services  sector  accounts 
(Annex V to the Regulation), entailed some countries setting up surveys to complement their 
other sources of data. The additional burden that these surveys - which are conducted every 
year or every few years - place on businesses is often very low. 

National  authorities  (typically  the  national  statistical  institutes)  carry  out  most  of  the  work 
required to produce the accounts, which involves processing existing data and improving their 
analytical  potential.  The  average  number  of  staff  required  to  compile  the  accounts  in  each 
national  authority  is  estimated  at  between  four  and  six  full-time  equivalents  for  the  six 
Annexes  to  the  Regulation11.  The  three  new  Annexes  proposed  will  require  around  two  or 
three  additional  full-time  equivalents  in  each  national  authority12,  with  the  exact  number 
depending on the individual Member State’s circumstances, existence/extent of data sources, 
etc.  The  accounts  add  considerable  value  to  the  basic  data  and  increases  the  potential  to 
analyse mutual interactions between the topics in the Annexes e.g. air emissions and energy 
use. Several national authorities used pilot studies (co-financed by the Commission) to set up 
the methods for processing and analysing the data. 

FEASIBILITY AND EFFECTIVENESS 

The  modules  laid  down  in  the  Regulation  were  tested  and  piloted  before  the  Commission 
proposed a legal framework, thus ensuring their feasibility (see below). The testing is carried 

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Source:  Member  States  national  statistical  institutes,  data  collected  in  the  2020  cost  analysis  of 
European statistics. 
Source:  Member  States  national  statistical  institutes,  data  collected  from  and  for  discussion  by  the 
expert group ‘Directors of sectoral and environmental statistics and accounts (DIMESA)’ in 2021. 

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out  in  cooperation  with  the  Member  States  so  as  to  benefit  from  their  expertise  and  ensure 
there  is  a  common  understanding  about  the  modules’  feasibility.  Pilot  studies  of  further, 
potential new modules are currently under way. 

The effectiveness  of the  environmental accounts depends on two factors:  first,  how existing 
information  can  be  reorganised  into  a  common  framework;  and  second,  how  and  to  what 
extent the accounts are used. 

On the first point, the air emissions accounts (Annex I to the Regulation) provide one example 
of  how  existing  information  has  been  reorganised.  These  accounts  use  information  already 
gathered  for  the  air  emission  inventories  required  under  the  UN  Framework  Convention  on 
Climate  Change  (UNFCCC)  and  under  the  UN  Economic  Commission  for  Europe 
Convention  on  Long-range  Transboundary  Air  Pollution  (CLRTAP).  Further  information  is 
then added to the data to bring them into line with the classifications and concepts used in the 
national  accounts.  Once  this  is  done,  applications  of  the  air  emissions  accounts  can  be 
developed.  For  instance,  environmental  footprints  are  derived  when  combining  them  with 
input-output tables. These footprints measure the global pressures on the environment around 
the world by EU consumption and investment. Another example of effectiveness is a low-cost 
model  based  on  the  (annual)  air  emissions  accounts,  which  is  used  to  produce  much  more 
timely quarterly estimates. Eurostat has produced these estimates since November 2021. The 
data  are  published  4.5  months  after  the  reference  quarter  and  significantly  improve  the 
timeliness of the data required in the Regulation, which is 21 months. 

Air emission accounts can also be used together with environmental accounts for other areas 
such as energy or environmental taxes. This information can be used in causal frameworks for 
describing  and  analysing  the  interactions  between  society  and  the  environment,  like  the 
framework ‘Driving forces, Pressures, State, Impact and Responses’ adopted by the European 
Environment Agency. 

On  the  second  point,  the  environmental  accounts  underpin  the  8th  General  Union 
Environmental  Action  Programme  to  203013.  Environmental  accounts  underpin  economic 
analysis and impact assessment and are used to monitor progress on policy objectives. More 
specifically indicators building on environmental accounts are used in the current monitoring 
frameworks  for  the  8th  Environmental  Action  Programme  and  circular  economy,  and  in  the 
future they can contribute to monitor biodiversity and zero pollution. Environmental accounts 
are  also  used  to  monitor  the  EU’s  progress  towards  the  relevant  Sustainable  Development 
Goals14 and in the resilience dashboard. 

QUALITY OF THE DATA TRANSMITTED SINCE THE LAST REPORT 

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OJ L 114, 12.4.2022, p. 22-36. 
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/en/web/products-statistical-books/-/ks-09-22-019.  SDG  indicators  based  on 
environmental  accounts  are:  ‘air  emission  intensity  of  industry’,  ‘material  footprint’,  ‘gross  value  added  in  the 
environmental  sector’,  ‘circular  material  use  rate’  and  ’shares  of  environmental  taxes  in  total  tax  revenues’. 
Furthermore, this report also uses carbon footprints in the chapter about spillover effects. 

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The Regulation requires Member States, as well as EEA countries, to report data to Eurostat15. 
A number of  candidate  countries and potential candidate  countries  for EU membership also 
report some data on a voluntary basis. This implementation report focuses on the first group 
of  countries  (EU/EEA  countries).  Eurostat  validates  the  data  received  and  makes  them 
publicly  available  on  its  website16,  together  with  technical  explanations  (metadata)  and 
background information17. 

The vast majority of Member States submitted complete data sets within the deadlines set in 
the  Regulation.  A  few  Member  States  missed  the  deadlines,  usually  by  only  a  few  days, 
except for one Member State which had a longer delay. However, these delays have had no 
tangible impact on the processing or dissemination of the data. 

It should be noted that the reporting deadlines set in the Regulation determine the timing  of 
the data production in the Member States for environmental accounts. This is an indicator of 
data  quality,  as  fresher  statistical  data  are  always  better.  However,  there  is  a  trade-off  with 
other  data  quality  aspects,  such  as  accuracy  or  coherence  across  environmental  accounts 
topics e.g. data on greenhouse gas emissions, energy use and energy taxes. 

Overall, for all Annexes  I to  VI,  data quality improved over 2019-2022.  The statistical  data 
for Annexes I to III submitted by Member States under the Regulation is of high quality. The 
data for Annexes IV to VI are less mature because obligatory reporting only started in 2017. 
Annexes IV and V are also more complex than the other Annexes and require other categories 
of source data. The Commission (Eurostat) expects the quality of the data for Annexes IV to 
VI to improve in the next few years. Improvement is still needed in several areas, for instance 
in  data  availability  for  producing  Annex  V  (Environmental  goods  and  services  sector 
accounts). The Commission (Eurostat) continues to work with the Member States to resolve 
technical issues. A number of measures to improve quality are either planned or already being 
implemented, see next section. 

(4) 

IMPROVEMENT MEASURES 

The Commission  (Eurostat) and the  Member States have agreed on a  European strategy  for 
environmental accounts for 2019 to  202318.  This  is  a  programme of further work agreed by 
the  Commission  (Eurostat)  and  the  Member  States  and  adopted  by  the  European  Statistical 
System Committee. This strategy coordinates European efforts and paves the way for possible 
new modules. The objectives for 2019 to 2023 are to: 

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Switzerland reports under the bilateral Statistical  Agreement of Switzerland  with the European Union 
since December 2019. Liechtenstein has a complete derogation from 691/2011, as specified in Decision 
of the EEA Joint Committee No 98/2012 of 30 April 2012 amending Annex XXI (Statistics) to the EEA 
Agreement 
(https://www.efta.int/sites/default/files/documents/legal-texts/eea/other-legal-
documents/adopted-joint-committee-decisions/2012%20-%20English/098-2012.pdf). 
Regulation  (EU)  691/2011,  Annex  IV,  Section  5.1  grants  a  derogation  for  those  NACE  codes,  which  Member 
States are not obliged to collect under Regulation (EC) 295/2008 on structural business statistics. 

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/environment/data/database 
http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/environment/overview 

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/1798247/6191525/European+Strategy+for+Environmental+Accounts/ 

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continue  to  improve  the  quality  of  the  current  European  environmental  accounts, 
including long time series and timely data; 

better communicate the relevance and content of European environmental accounts, 
including by expressing the environmental modules as a whole system; 

serve user needs by offering further extensions, applications and indicators, including 
footprints, based on the current European environmental accounts; 

assess  the  need  to  adjust  European  environmental  accounts  to  new  priorities  and 
areas; 

support  those  who  produce  the  accounts  in  the  Member  States  with  financial 
resources, training, handbooks and compilation tools; 

contribute to the further development of global standards of the UN SEEA and global 
initiatives such as monitoring the Sustainable Development Goals. 

A  review  was  conducted  midway  through  the  strategy,  as  scheduled19.  The  strategy  is 
accompanied by an action plan with a concrete list of actions and deadlines, for each objective 
listed above20. 

The European strategy for environmental accounts does not prevent individual Member States 
from also developing other streams of work, according to their national circumstances, policy 
needs and available resources. 

PROPOSALS FOR NEW MODULES 

Article 10  of  the  Regulation  states  that  this  implementation  report,  where  appropriate  and 
taking into account the findings of pilot studies, must be accompanied by proposals for new 
modules in a number of named areas21. 

As  stated  above,  three  new  modules  have  now  been  developed  to  the  point  that  the 
Commission  has  proposed  them  for  inclusion  in  the  Regulation,  through  an  amendment 
currently  in  ordinary  legislative  procedure  (COM(2022) 329).  Those  modules  are:  forest 
accounts, environmental subsidies and similar transfers and ecosystem accounts. 

(5) 

CONCLUSIONS 

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https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/1798247/6191525/Mid-
term+review+of+the+European+Strategy+for+Environmental+Accounts+2019-2023.docx/22f0aaa1-
4b9e-97c6-e859-a87c437b1ca6?t=1616431339959 
https://circabc.europa.eu/ui/group/c4687299-277c-42f8-8747-dee3f17341de/library/03f07982-845b-
400b-8b0d-104cbb615939/details 
Namely:  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), Three of them (EPEA, EGSS and 
Energy Accounts) eventually became part of the Regulation (Annexes IV to VI) already. 

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The  Commission  and  the  Member  States  have  continued  to  improve  the  European 
environmental accounts under Regulation (EU) No 691/2011, in particular by: 

  proposing to add three new thematic modules to the Regulation; 
  strengthening data quality and effectiveness; 
 
  developing further indicators to meet users’ needs; and 
  assessing  the  need  to  adjust  the  European  environmental  accounts  to  new  priorities 

improving communication; 

and areas. 

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