A Survey of Resource and Environmental Accounting in Industrialized Countries
Author(s)
Peskin, Henry M.; Lutz, Ernst
Abstract
Current systems of national accounts (SNAs) reflect environmental and natural resource changes either poorly or not at all. The existing framework thus generates estimates of growth, income and well being that may be neither accurate nor sustainable. Developing countries’ economies tend to be both more resource based and to have more severe environmental problems. As a consequence, traditional SNA methods will provide an even less accurate reflection of environmental realities than is the case in the industrialized countries. A number of industrialized countries are exploring various methods to incorporate environmental and natural resource data into their SNAs. This paper surveys some of the proposals and problems of these efforts, in the hopes that they may contain lessons for similar efforts in the developing countries. Indications are given of which countries currently use each method.
