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About Tools

ESCAP and its partners have developed, adapted and applied many tools in its program to strengthen environment statistics for addressing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Environment statistics are multidisciplinary and therefore are best developed in collaboration with relevant national and regional stakeholders. These tools include a Diagnostic Tool, and Inventory Template and several self-learning materials.

Overview

• Overview of Environment Statistics
• Integrated Policy

Diagnostic Tool

ESCAP and its partners have developed, adapted and applied many tools in its program to strengthen environment statistics for addressing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Environment statistics are multidisciplinary and therefore are best developed in collaboration with relevant national and regional stakeholders. These tools include a Diagnostic Tool, and Inventory Template and several training modules.

Inventory Template

The inventory Template provides a structure for systematically describing statistical activities related to the environment. It does so by listing key elements to be described. It is intended to support inventorying environment statistics at the national and sub-national level.

Framework for the Development of Environment Statistics (FDES)

The FDES provides guidance on a core set of environmental indicators that has proven beneficial to inform policy. It is designed to assist all countries in articulating environment statistics programmes by: 

1. delineating the scope of environment statistics and identifying its constituents;
2. contributing to the assessment of data requirements, sources, availability and gaps;
3. guiding the development of multipurpose data collection processes and databases; and
4. assisting in coordination and organization across institutions.

System of Environmental Economic Accounting (SEEA)

The SEEA, an international statistical standard, provides a coherent and integrated framework for collecting, organizing, analysing, presenting environmental data and relating it to economic and social data. It adheres to the principles of the System of National Accounts (SNA), and expands its scope by:

• taking an accounting approach to record the stocks and flows of natural inputs into the economy,

• providing standard terminology, definitions, methods and classifications,

• adding measures and classifications of:

  • physical stocks of natural capital (including ecosystems) and their monetary values,
  • physical resource flows (land, metals and minerals, timber, energy, water, fish) into the economy
  • residual flows from the economy (air emissions, water effluents, solid waste) into the environment
  • environmental activities such as protection expenditures, taxes and subsidies,
  • ecosystems and their services, including biodiversity and carbon sequestration, and

• linking economic activities (producers and consumers) to societal benefits.