Economic growth and patterns of sustainability

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SEEA Revision: Accounting for Sustainability?

The 1993 United Nations System for integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting (SEEA) aimed at measuring the - environmental - sustainability of economic performance and growth in terms of produced and natural capital maintenance. To this end it advanced "greened" economic indicators, notably Environmentally-adjusted net Domestic Product (EDP) and Capital Formation (ECF). A revised (draft) version of the 1993 handbook, entitled "Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting 2003" (IEEA), is now available on the web site of the United Nations Statistics Division. Despite its extensive discussion of sustainable development, the IEEA 2003 fails in measuring overall sustainability as it shuns monetary valuation of environmental impacts in a modular framework for physical, hybrid and - selective - monetary accounts. The revision thus missed an opportunity to bridge the persisting dichotomy between ecological and economic sustainability analysis. Future work should explore and test the capability of material flow and environmentally adjusted economic indicators to capture the elusive notions of strong and weak sustainability of economic activity.environmental accounting, sustainability, capital maintenance, dematerialization, green GDP, valuation

Sustainable development: Paradigm or paranoia?

Sustainable development is the globally embraced paradigm for integrating environment and development policies. Agreement ends with attempts atoperationalizing the elusive notion of sustainability. A contentious debate among'environmentalists' and 'environmental economists' has brought about a confusingproliferation of indicators and policy advice on sustainable development. Greening the monetary national accounts could moderate the debate by generating conceptsand indicators which translate environmental concerns into the language of widely used economic variables. The implementation of sustainable growth anddevelopment requires more. 'Economic' instruments of environmental costinternalization need to be combined with environmental legislation and regulation.Such reconciliation of environmental and economic policies should be supported by a'social compact' between government and civil society. The sustainedimplementation of sustainable development depends on it. --

Green accounting and material flow analysis: Alternatives or complements?

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Dematerialization and capital maintenance: Two sides of the sustainability coin

The reductionist trend of equalizing sustainable development with CO2control needs to be reversed - notwithstanding the significance of climate change. Conventional, 'compartmentalized' data systems impede an integrated vision andtreatment of the paradigm. New accounts and balances focus on the interactionbetween environment and economy. 'Greened' national accounts measure economic sustainability in terms of (produced and natural) capital maintenance; balances of material flows assess ecological sustainability as the dematerializationof production and consumption. Both concepts aim to preserve environmentalassets. They differ however with regard to the scope, strength and evaluation ofsustainability. First results for Germany indicate weak sustainability of theeconomy, owing to an increasing capital base. Strong sustainability is not in sight,though, since material throughput has not been reduced sufficiently. An 'Alliancefor Sustainable Development' is proposed to implement and sustain the paradigm. --Dematerialization,capital maintenance,sustainability,environmental accounting,eco-tax,alliance for sustainable development

Dematerialization and capital maintenance : two sides of the sustainability coin

The reductionist trend of equalizing sustainable development with CO2 control needs to be reversed - notwithstanding the significance of climate change. Conventional, "compartmentalized" data systems impede an integrated vision and treatment of the paradigm. New accounts and balances focus on the interaction between environment and economy. "Greened" national accounts measure economic sustainability in terms of (produced and natural) capital maintenance; balances of material flows assess ecological sustainability as the dematerialization of production and consumption. Both concepts aim to preserve environmental assets. They differ however with regard to the scope, strength and evaluation of sustainability. First results for Germany indicate weak sustainability of the economy, owing to an increasing capital base. Strong sustainability is not in sight, though, since material throughput has not been reduced sufficiently. An "Alliance for Sustainable Development" is proposed to implement and sustain the paradigm

Green accounting and material flow analysis: Alternatives or complements?

Rather than contributing to the proliferation of ad hoc environmental indicators and accounting systems this paper addresses the physical-monetary dichotomy in measuring the interactions between environment and economy by focusing on two systematic approaches which appear to become international standards. They are the physical Material Flow Accounts (MFA) developed by Wuppertal Institute and the physical and monetary System of Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounts (SEEA) of the United Nations. The following discusses some of the pros and cons of both physical and monetary approaches, with a view to linking or combining them

Wie teuer ist (uns) die Umwelt? Zur umweltökonomischen Gesamtrechnung in Deutschland

Die amtliche Statistik der Bundesrepublik liefert mit den umweltökonomischen Gesamtrechnungen (UGR) ein modulares Rahmenwerk, das wichtige, aberfragmentarische Daten zu einzelnen Umweltbelastungen liefert. Die in Tonnenaggregierten Rohstoffnutzungen und Emissionen zeigen Trends und Ursachen fürverschiedene Belastungen, können aber nicht das weltweit anerkannte Leitbildnachhaltigen Wirtschaftens operationalisieren. Hierfür bietet sich die von denVereinten Nationen propagierte integrierte umweltökonomische Gesamtrechnung(IUGR) an. Vor deren Implementierung schrecken allerdings sowohl dieamtlichen Statistiker als auch ein eigens eingesetzter wissenschaftlicher Beiratnoch zurück.Der hier vorgelegte Überblick über die Methodik und Aussagekraft der IUGR stellt dar, wie Nachhaltigkeit als Erhaltung des produzierten und Naturkapitals definiert und gemessen werden kann - konsistent und daher vergleichbar mit denwichtigsten Wirtschaftsindikatoren. Eine Pilotstudie der IUGR illustriert dies fürDeutschland. Sie zeigt ferner am Beispiel der Ökosteuer, wie Umweltkosten fürden rationalen Einsatz von Marktinstrumenten der Nachhaltigkeitspolitikverwendet werden können. --

Sustainability Indicators Past and Present: What Next?

This paper discusses the current state of thought amongst the Sustainability Indicator (SI) community, what has been achieved and where we are succeeding and failing. Recent years have witnessed the rise of “alternative facts” and “fake news” and this paper discusses how SIs fit into this maelstrom, especially as they are themselves designed to encapsulate complexity into condensed signals and it has long been known that SIs can be selectively used to support polarized sides of a debate. This paper draws from chapters in a new edited volume, the “Routledge Handbook of Sustainability Indicators and Indices”, edited by the authors. The book has 34 chapters written by a total of 59 SI experts from a wide range of backgrounds, and attempts to provide a picture of the past and present, strengths and weaknesses of SI development today. This paper is an “analysis of those analyses”—a mindful reflection on reflection, and an assessment of the malign and benign forces at work in 2018 within the SI arena. Finally, we seek to identify where SIs may be going over the coming, unpredictable years