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THE ROLE OF STATISTICS IN SOCIETY • SESSION F
How can we meet society's
increasing demand for "green"
statistics?
Trine Heill Braathu
Statistics Norway
How can we meet society's increasing
demand for "green" statistics
Trine Heill Braathu1
Abstract.
The demand for statistics explaining the “green” or the
environmental changes in society is increasing, both national and
international. The gap between the demand and the supply of green
statistics are growing.
There are several challenges that can explain this gap. One important
challenge regards the definition of what is to be considered “green”
and what to include/exclude in the statistics. Another is how to get
the relevant and necessary information/data required to develop
suitable statistics for the intended purpose. Most of the existing
standard classifications lack the green aspect and additional
information is therefore needed to satisfy the demand.
An appropriate additional question is whether all kinds of “green”
data should be transformed to official statistics and what the role of
the NSI should be in that context.
The paper will explain how these challenges so far have been met in
Statistics Norway and give some suggestions for the NSIs role in
meeting the increasing demand for “green” information in the future.
The participants can learn:
•
the challenges with developing green statistics,
•
what the NSI can offer of data on green statistics,
•
suggestions on how to accommodate the demand for green
statistics, and
•
how NSI can be the provider of official definitions on green
statistics.
Key words: green statistics, indicators, National Statistical Institutes,
classifications, challenges.
1
Statistics Norway, Advisor, Oslo, Norway, Email: [email protected]
Statistics Sweden | scb.se/nsm2016 | [email protected]
1.
Introduction
The demand for statistics explaining the “green” or the environmental changes is
increasing due to climate changes, goals of sustainable development and public
debates on the topics. Green economic growth, green jobs, green industries and
green investments are now almost obligatory aspects to include when future plans
for various aspects of the society are discussed.
It is in this context relevant to ask what kind of data that best can help to answer the
question of how green the economy evolves, and more difficult, what society is
doing in becoming greener and the effects of policy changes. An elongation of this is
the question of what the national statistical institutes can offer of relevant statistics
and what the role of the NSI should be.
There is however different statistics used to illustrate these issues and somewhat
different definitions of what is considered green. In addition, what is considered
green today may not be green in the future and the concept of green can therefore be
seen as a dynamic term.
2.
The increasing demand
There are significant demand for good quality data that can show the development
and the state of the society and the environment. This demand for data and analysis
spans from micro level to macro level and across different industries, dependent on
what environmental issues that are in focus.
The increasing and expanding demand for relevant economic and environmental
statistics also reveals the different definitions used. In international context, green
growth, green jobs, green industries, green FDI are subjects where they want to
measure somewhat different aspects of the green development in society, even
though some features may be the same. Different strategies and indicators are also
developed to define and measure these issues. Examples of this are the Organisation
for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) with green growth indicators
and United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) with its Green Economy
Initiative. In addition, Eurostat, the World Bank, the European Environmental
Agency (EEA) and several more have different strategies and indicators.
There are on both international and national level an increasing demand related to
statistics that can assist in policy making and to measure the effect of policy changes.
A need to closer evaluate the effect and to separate the policy changes from other
factors in society is similarly relevant. These issues may also use different definitions
and aspects of what is considered “green”. A topic in Norway the past years has
been the need for a “green shift” in order to adjust to the climate and environmental
challenges we face. The shift entails a transition to products and activities with less
negative effect on the climate and environment than today and with emphasis on
innovation and development within technology.
Statistics Sweden | scb.se/nsm2016 | [email protected]
In Europe, the demand for more data in policy making resulted in the EU-regulation
691/2011 on environmental economic accounting. The regulation was effected after
the European Commission “recognised a need to supplement existing indicators
with data that incorporate environmental and social aspects in order to allow more
coherent and comprehensive policy making”. The first batch came into force in 2013
with the modules emissions to air, environmental taxes and material flow accounts
(MFA). Several new batches are underway to be implemented under the regulation.
The statistics follows the same system boundaries as the European System of
National Accounts (ESA) and are included in SEEA2.
The statistics embraced by the SEEA framework and EU-regulation 691/2011 is
classified by industry classifications, among other classifications. Meanwhile in
Norway, there is demand for even more details about products, on enterprise level
and on more specified activities which will not be covered within the statistical
outline.
There is also a demand for analyses and information about the footprint humanity
sets on nature and on the planet, life cycle analysis of products – from the input
material, the production processes, the product use, and to scrap -, and carbon
neutrality. The consciousness of the state of the environment, how “green” the
economy is, and measures in becoming “greener” are also closely linked to
sustainable development. This might be considered more of a challenge due to
issues with considering all aspects of the environment, biodiversity, climate etc. at
the same time. What is in one aspect considered a green activity might be harmful to
other areas. A common example is windmills. The installation of windmills is
considered a green activity since the renewable energy produced by the windmills
may substitute the use of non-renewable energy sources. On the other hand, the
installation of the windmill may cause damage to the biodiversity, flora and fauna
and the production of the windmills might not be environmentally friendly. The
challenge with life cycle analysis is then to capture the different elements during the
lifespan of a product and how to weight the aspects against each other.
In relation to research, good quality data is evident. Researchers need solid and
consistent data in order to analyse the effect of policy instruments, trends and to
make projections for the future.
It is not easy to list all the different demands for green statistics from different actors
in society. One reason for this is the mentioned variations in what kind of focus these
actors have and that they tend to define “green” in slightly different ways. However,
when looking into all these different initiatives regarding the demand for “green”
statistics, they all tend to comprise the same kind of “challenges” that the societies of
today meet. It is then possible to systematise these different demands by making a
description of what is necessary to do in order to overcome these challenges. This
description can then be seen as a list of issues describing a greener society and hence
in which areas green statistics is needed in order to meet society’s demand for
information within this area (see table 1). And by doing it this way, one will also
2
System of Environmental-Economic Accounting.
Statistics Sweden | scb.se/nsm2016 | [email protected]
experience that there already exist a lot of official statistics that can be used in order
to meet the demands for ”green” statistics.
3.
Official “green” statistics today
Awareness of the state of the environment and climate has been present for several
decades. Statistics on emissions to air and energy use has likewise had the same
relevance. The statistics has been frequently used for analytical purposes and in
policy making by private and public actors in society.
In addition to the statistics on emissions to air and energy use, several statistics has
emerged through the last decades as the need for more and various statistics has
arisen. The national statistical institutes now have statistics that describes the state of
the environment and the development on several areas. The statistics expanded to
more figures on physical data and in the more recent years also monetary figures.
The various statistics are presented in the first column in table 1 below. In the second
column suggestions on how the statistics can be used to describe different aspects of
a greener society is listed. This is not an exhausted list but suggestions of relevant
environmental issues and how they can be presented by official statistics at Statistics
Norway. The row with question marks in the table is meant to illustrate that there
might be other statistics relevant which can potentially illustrate the green society on
other areas.
Statistics3
A greener society can be describes by:
Material flow accounts (MFA)
Energy accounts
More efficient use of natural resources
Energy intensity (GWh/NOK billion)
More efficient use of energy and “cleaner”
production processes
Emissions to air statistics
Reduced emissions to air
Energy balance and energy accounts
The change from use of non-renewable
resources to renewable resources
Emission intensity
Decomposing analysis
How economic growth is detached from
environmental impact
Waste accounts
Environmental Goods and Services Sector
(EGSS)
Production of products that:
Can be recycled
Reduces the environmental impact
Improve/repair environmental
damage
Political instruments
Environmental taxes
Environmental protection expenditure (EPEA)
General government expenditure (COFOG)
???
Public and private expenses
???
Table 1. Use of environmental and energy statistics
3
The statistics written in italic are not yet official statistics, but are under development.
Statistics Sweden | scb.se/nsm2016 | [email protected]
The statistics listed in table 1 are important by themselves and describes for example
central features of the environment, climate and economic measures in
environmental protection. Due to the common system boundaries used in the
statistics, i.e. the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA), with the
same standard statistical classifications, definitions and structure, it is also possible
to combine the different statistics to illustrate a broader picture. SEEA is a
multipurpose framework that describes the interactions between the economy and
the environment. It contains internationally4 agreed concepts and definitions on
environmental-economic accounting that follows a similar accounting structure as
SNA. Combining the environmental and energy statistics by mutual classifications
gives a strong advantage when depicting different environmental and climate
related issues.
Linking the environmental statistics with economic statistics using the same
standard statistical classifications makes it possible to for example investigate if
economic growth has resulted in increased pressure on the environment. It can also
show how the production in different industries affects the environment in light of
for instance emissions and energy use. This combination of statistics is employed in
for example the emission intensity and energy intensity.
Besides the already existing statistics, several new statistics are in development. This
includes statistics on Environmental Goods and Services Sector (EGSS) and
Environmental Protection Expenditure Accounts (EPEA). These two statistics, in
addition to Physical Energy Flow Accounts (PEFA), are the second batch in the EUregulation 691/2011 with obligatory reporting from 2017. The EGSS statistics will
present data on national economy production activities by the variables market
output, value added, exports and employment related to the environmental goods
and services, while the EPEAs main objective is to value the national expenditures
for environmental protection, i.e. the economic resources devoted by the resident
units of the economy to environmental protection. .
Since the subject of environmental challenges are so comprehensive and with many
different dimensions it is difficult to produce one single statistics (or indicator) that
can explain all the environmental aspects. This is reflected in the framework given
by SEEA with different segments and statistics, and in the different indicator sets
proposed by international agencies.
4.
Challenges with meeting the demand
As previously stated, the supply of “green” statistics is underway in meeting the
demand. However, as more environmental challenges prevail, more needs for data is
sought after in order to explain the changes and to evaluate possible measures.
It is an international agreement between the United Nations, the European Commission, FAO, OECD,
IMF and the World Bank Group.
4
Statistics Sweden | scb.se/nsm2016 | [email protected]
An important challenge for meeting society’s demand for green statistics is to
actually identify the demand. With a broad spectre of subjects and vivid debates it is
difficult to pinpoint what data is needed. What is possible to state is that there is a
need for more details and analysis of existing statistics.
SEEA and the statistical systems form a solid framework for the compilation of green
statistics, but the challenge lies in how to utilise the framework in practice. After
work with implementing the new modules in EU regulation 691/2011, Statistics
Norway has experienced that the already existing statistics does not cover the
environmental aspect that is required in the new statistics, especially with the EGSS
statistics. It is stated in the legal text that the national accounts should be the main
data source, in addition to the structural business statistics and other relevant
statistics, but the definitions and classifications in the already existing statistics does
not entail the environmental dimension needed. For example the standard industrial
classification (SIC2007) does not specify which industries are to be considered green,
nor does the national accounts product list (Classification of Products by Activity
(CPA)) specify green products. The EGSS statistics are to be cross-classified by
classification of economic activities (NACE) and the environmental classifications
CEPA (Classification of Environmental Protection Activities) and CReMA
(Classification of Resource Management Activities), but the implementation has
shown to be a bit of a challenge due to the lack of a direct connection to the
environmental aspects.
Because of the issues regarding basic data and classifications, there are still some
challenges with the definitions, data sources and international comparability in
order to convey from theoretical guidelines into practice. Several pragmatic
approaches have been suggested by Eurostat in attempts to try and solve these
issues.
Due to the challenges with green classifications and for the green aspect to be
present in the basic data, a suggestion is to incorporate this in the entire statistical
office. Until now the production of the environmental and the energy statistics in
Statistics Norway has mainly been performed by the division for energy and
environmental statistics, with assistance from the national accounts. The growing
demand for green statistics indicates that it is no longer just a task for the
environmental and national accounts divisions in the NSI to produce environmental
statistics, or the input to the environmental statistics, but for the entire statistical
offices to adjust and adapt the basic data to incorporate the environmental and green
aspect in already existing classifications and statistics. The idea with incorporating
the environmental aspect in the basic data will to a great extent contribute to
improve the quality of for example the EGSS statistics. It will, however, not be able
to serve an exhaustive life-cycle-analysis based on available data on products.
Altering the basic data to include an environmental aspect is a new way of thinking
for the statistical offices. This is however not yet decided upon, and one must bear in
mind that the basic statistics was developed to serve other purposes than an
environmental one. As a first step, Statistics Norway has established a forum for the
work with SEEA in order to coordinate the work with the implementation of SEEA
Central Framework across different divisions.
Statistics Sweden | scb.se/nsm2016 | [email protected]
5.
The role of the NSI
In addition to the question of what statistics the statistical offices has to offer
encountering the desired green statistics, another relevant question is what the role
for the NSI should be in this matter. More intricate connections between different
factors that affects the society puts pressure on what the statistical offices offer and
can offer of green statistics.
In short, the official role of the NSI is to be a professional autonomous organization
that provides official statistics. According to the Statistics Act chapter 3-1, Statistics
Norway’s duties are to:
“a) identify and place in order of priority the needs for official statistics
b) coordinate comprehensive statistics which are produced by administrative
agencies,
c) develop statistical methods and apply statistics to analysis and research
d) provide information for statistical use for research purposes and for public
planning within the framework of § 2-5 of this Act,
e) bear the main responsibility for international statistical cooperation.”
As the user needs change when society evolves, Statistics Norway aims to produce
the statistics that are most useful. The aim is for all of Statistics Norway’s statistics to
be relevant, topical, accurate, timely, comparable and accessible.
All statistics in Norway placed under legal acts must also be published as official
statistics on Statistics Norway’s web page. Because of this all the modules under EU
regulation 691/2011 will be official statistics. A question on how the data will be
presented still remains. With reference to bullet point a), Statistics Norway must
decide upon what to present of environmental data that goes beyond the required
legal acts and how the data should be presented. It is important to produce statistics
that will endure changing topics within society to stay relevant and steady.
In order for the NSI to be a provider of official green statistics (or indicators) it is
essential that a clear and unambiguously definition and a precise explanation of
what is included are well explained.
The boundaries set by the statistical classifications can give a solid foundation to
obtain a common understanding and definition of what is to be counted as green. If
the scope and limits are well explained, the statistics can be employed for analysis
and policy making, even with the knowledge that the subject of a green society is a
dynamic subject. The added value of using statistical standards is the comparability
and linkage to other relevant statistics. Other advantages with official statistics are
the timeliness and the time series that follows.
Statistics Sweden | scb.se/nsm2016 | [email protected]
A way to utilize the already existing environmental data for the NSI in order to meet
the demand is to offer an alternative way of presenting the statistics. A kind of
indicator set can demonstrate the different aspects of the environment, in order to
give more details and to express the environmental dimension of the economy. Table
1 is an illustration of how this can be done. With this kind of presentation of data we
take one step back from trying to precisely define the green economy by one
statistics, and instead depict a series of factors that affects the society. The NSI also
has the knowledge on how to view and present the statistics and how to make good
analysis of the existing figures. In this regard it can be viewed as the statistical offices
role to dissimilate how the existing statistics can be utilised in order to meet some of
the demand for green statistics.
An argument against producing official green statistics is the need for details. Due to
the obligation of secrecy and use of information under the Statistics Act, Statistics
Norway is more bound in what figures to publish compared to for example
analytical consultancies.
The issue of comparability between countries has been discussed when different
methods had been applied in different countries. For comparability between the
Nordic countries, The Nordic Council of Ministers5 suggested in 2013 to introduce
an annual exchange of economic, environmental and social conditions between the
Nordic countries. This coordination will help to integrate the discussion on the
environmental area and to exchange experience and methods. They also recommend
producing a yearly Nordic environmental and economic account.
6.
Conclusion
How economic activities affect the environment and climate is an intricate subject.
Several international agencies have their own definitions and methods in order to
make strategies and indicators to measure what they call green economy or green
growth. When looking at the different “green” definitions, they all tend to comprise
the same kind of “challenges” that the societies of today meet.
The existing statistics in Statistics Norway can to some extend be used to fulfil the
demand for green statistics when utilizing the advantages of official statistics, i.e. the
same standard classification and boundaries set by the statistical systems. In order to
meet society’s demand for statistics, the NSI can disseminate the already existing
statistics to assist with depicting environmental issues. In this way the statistical
office can assist in how to apply the statistics and demonstrate ways of utilizing the
figures in order to describe the challenges society face.
The limitations of using existing statistics are the level of detail and the issue of
getting the environmental aspect in the basic data to extract the details needed.
5 See the report “Making the environment count - Nordic accounts and indicators for analysing and
integrating environment and economy”.
Statistics Sweden | scb.se/nsm2016 | [email protected]
The new statistics on EGSS has some challenges with extracting the “green” aspect
from already established classifications, and an overall change of mind-set might be
the solution in order to meet the requirement and adapt the basic data needed.
The advantages for the national statistical institutes are the standard statistical
classifications, as mentioned. Added value is given when the same systems allows
for combinations of the economic and environmental statistics to portray new
pictures of challenges in society. Another advantage is that the statistical offices can
offer a clear and unambiguously definition and a precise explanation of what is
included in the statistics.
Acknowledgments
I would like to acknowledge the contribution from my colleague Kristine Kolshus.
Thank you for valuable comments and feedback.
7.
References
www.ssb.no – This is Statistics Norway
System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA). Available at:
http://unstats.un.org/unsd/envaccounting/seea.asp
REGULATION (EU) No 691/2011 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF
THE COUNCIL of 6 July 2011 on European environmental economic accounts
REGULATION (EU) No 538/2014 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF
THE COUNCIL of 16 April 2014, amending Regulation (EU) No 691/2011 on
European environmental economic accounts
Hass, J., Kolshus, K. and Køber, T. (2013). Green growth and challenges in
“greening” statistical classifications.
UNEP. http://web.unep.org/greeneconomy/
OECD. http://www.oecd.org/greengrowth/
The Statistics Act of 1989. Available at:
http://www.ssb.no/en/omssb/styringsdokumenter/lover-og-prinsipper/thestatistics-act-of-1989
Nordic Council of Ministers (2016). Making the environment count - Nordic
accounts and indicators for analysing and integrating environment and economy.
Available at:
http://norden.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:915431/FULLTEXT01.pdf
Statistics Sweden | scb.se/nsm2016 | [email protected]