EIPOT Final Project Report - Stockholm Environment Institute

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ERA-NET SKEP Project EIPOT (www.eipot.eu) “Development of a methodology for the assessment of global environmental impacts of traded goods and services” system, a good deal of harmonisation has already been done. For some countries, the first estimates are already in place. However, the international system is still not under way. As discussed in previous chapters, modelling exercises already exist to investigate the issue in a multi-regional input-output system. However, the models are largely driven by non-governmental, partly imputed data, put together by researchers and projects rather than statistical offices. This brings the danger of inconsistency, lack of transparency, discontinuation, or even waste of resources, and it will become a crucial issue once 'tough' decisions have to be made, for example in the context of international climate policy. As discussed earlier, much of the economic statistical data needed for the analysis is available, unlike environmental statistics. In the EU, a statistics regulation of the SEEA would help to improve the data situation. Regulation is expected in the coming year or shortly thereafter. Previously, the data were provided by gentlemen's agreement, but this has not generated sufficient coverage for all European countries. The details of the data to be collected are not yet decided. Air emissions, energy use and economic instruments are likely to be EU priorities. The 'Group of Four' (Go4) – Eurostat, together with DG Environment (DG ENV), the European Environment Agency (EEA) and the Joint Research Centre (JRC) – have signed a technical arrangement to establish ten data centres: natural resources, products (IPP), waste, soil, forestry, air, climate change, water, biodiversity, and land use. The main purpose of these data centres is to improve knowledge of the relationship between resource use, economic growth and environmental impacts. The Go4 arrangement outlines the short and medium-term division of responsibilities, clear reporting procedures to European bodies and coherent dissemination to data users. Eurostat is the lead organisation for three environmental data centres: natural resources, products (supporting integrated product policy) and waste. The EEA acts as data centre on air, climate change, water, biodiversity and land use; the JRC as a data centre on soil and forestry. The data centres will communicate to ensure that work is not duplicated. The main goals of the data centre on waste are exemplary for all Go4 data providers: • to provide data, indicators and other information to assess policy effectiveness; • to manage data, perform quality assurance, and coordinate data and information managed by other bodies (DG Environment, Joint Research Centre, European Environment Agency, other EU institutions, international organisations such as OECD and UN and so on); • to be the central entry point for reporting data under EU laws on waste; • to be the reference point for policy questions requiring (statistical) information on waste and associated environmental impacts; • to develop and coordinate methodologies to produce statistical data, information and indicators on the environmental impacts of waste generation and management, taking a life cycle perspective, in cooperation with the Go4 partners. A number of European policies, such as the Integrated Product Policy (IPP) Communication, the two Thematic Strategies on Sustainable Use of Natural Resources and on the Prevention and Recycling of Waste as well as the upcoming Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP) Action Plan require life cycle-based indicators to monitor their effectiveness. Three data centres on resources, products and waste have so far been established. These centres will provide the necessary information to support the implementation and monitoring of these policy areas. 65
ERA-NET SKEP Project EIPOT (www.eipot.eu) “Development of a methodology for the assessment of global environmental impacts of traded goods and services” The JRC IES will develop by 2010, life cycle-based environmental indicators for the three data centres through the following tasks: • provision of the three sets of decoupling indicators set out in the Thematic Strategy on Natural Resources, namely the overall EU eco-efficiency indicator, resource productivity and resourcespecific impact indicators; • provision of product environmental impact indicators, covering the main product groups consumed or used in the EU; • provision of waste environmental indicators, covering the main waste types generated and treated in the EU. These indicators will be based on a framework built on the requirements of the International Life Cycle Data System (ILCD), in particular the life cycle inventory datasets and impact assessment methods and factors. Sub-indicators will provide information on carbon and ecological footprints. Institutions must be active in setting up national systems to ensure that future studies can be conducted and data collected. It is essential that international institutions agree on one main methodology and common standards of data compilation, to ensure data consistency and enable automating of data collection. We recommend using the SEEA and SNA as a starting point for the EIPOT methodology. The national accounts departments in most countries have not prioritized the symmetric IO data. It is important that new uses/users of the data can show their interest to the departments at national agencies and at Eurostat. Both have a lot of other pressing needs for their scarce resources. Countries must produce and report IO tables and NAMEA data regularly. At present, data collection in the EU+EFTA 45 area is based on a gentlemen’s agreement. Plans are being finalised for statistical regulation which will make it obligatory to report. Such regulation, together with existing manuals, will improve the data situation for many countries. Nevertheless, data will need to be checked and some countries will need more time than others to report. Resources and institutional structure are needed to ensure consistency of data. Data provision from countries outside Europe also needs attention. Continued coordination between European institutions and the UN, OECD, WTO and others will be important to ensure consistency of data compilation. Capacity building in developing countries to construct the necessary data will be needed. The alternative is to develop IO tables outside official departments. This could be done in different ways, for example by means of the ten environmental data centres outlined here. Agreement on the structure of data collection and processing would enable synchronisation between these centres. A final point concerns terminology. The structural framework for analysing trade flows is based around the accounting framework. Some call it environmentally extended input-output analyses (EE-IOA) or multi-regional input-output analyses (MRIOA), others call it system of environmental and economic accounts (SEEA) or NAMEA. We recommend aligning the terminology, as it is likely to be confusing to people outside of the modelling world. 45 The European Free Trade Association (EFTA) is an intergovernmental organisation set up for the promotion of free trade and economic integration to the benefit of its four Member States: Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. 66
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EIPOT Final Project Report - Stockholm Environment Institute

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