Sustainability Language

Sustainability measurement & disclosure

Environmental accounting

Statistical and corporate frameworks that integrate environmental data with economic accounts to measure economy–environment interactions.

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Definition

Environmental accounting comprises frameworks that record environmental stocks, flows and costs alongside economic accounts. Internationally, the UN System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) is the agreed statistical standard, applying national-accounts concepts to environmental assets and flows; at company level it denotes management and financial accounting for environmental costs and performance.

References

Overview

What it means

The SEEA Central Framework covers physical flows (energy, water, materials) and environmental assets; the SEEA Ecosystem Accounting extension, adopted by the UN Statistical Commission in March 2021, measures ecosystem extent, condition and services and has been applied in more than 34 countries. Together they enable indicators such as resource productivity and natural-capital-adjusted wealth.

How it is used

Used by national statistical offices for green GDP-style aggregates and policy analysis, and by companies for environmental management accounting and natural-capital assessment.

Why it matters

It makes nature visible in the same accounting logic that drives economic policy, underpinning natural-capital and beyond-GDP agendas.

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