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By Tatenda Mujeyi

In a move that may reshape decisions around global economic balancing and policy-making towards sustainable development, the United Nations last week adopted a new framework, System of Environmental-Economic Accounting—Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA-EA), that includes the contributions of nature when calculating GDP.

The new framework, (SEEA EA), adopted by the UN Statistical Commission establishes five ecosystem accounts on, ecosystems extent, condition, monetary services and physical services and the monetary services asset from which data is converted to monetary terms..
The framework goes beyond the commonly utilised post world war adoption and goes on to show the values nature has on economies.

“Experts emphasize that while a statistic such as GDP does a good job of showing the value of goods and services exchanged in markets, it does not reflect the dependency of the economy on nature, nor its impacts on nature, such as the deterioration of water quality or the loss of a forest.” The United Nations Department of Economics and Social Affairs UNDESA said on its website.

With continued efforts on mitigating the effects of climate change, inculcating the natural resources in economic calculations potential benefits the going green campaign.
“The adoption comes at a time when climate change continues its relentless march and the world is on track to reach new highs of warming, climbing to at least 3°C above pre-industrial levels by 2100. According to the World Meteorological Organization, 2020 was in a dead-heat to be one of the three warmest years on record, and 2011-2020 was the warmest decade on record, with the warmest six years all being since 2015.” UNDESA also noted.
The move should harbour well with the plan to meet 80% of the sustainable development goals as it puts accounting of the natural resources central as it should determine decisions to be made in upcoming conference’s.

“And the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem integrity, together with climate change and pollution will undermine our efforts on 80 per cent of the Sustainable Development Goal targets…The new framework can also underpin decision-making at two crucial conferences later this year—COP15 on Biodiversity in Kunming and the Glasgow Climate Conference, COP26” UNDESA also said.

With five countries, South Africa, Uganda, over 34 countries voluntarily compiling ecosystem accounts, adoption of new account recommendation’s is ongoing with expections on continued joining by government’s.

“More than 34 countries are compiling ecosystem accounts on an experimental basis. With the adoption of the new accounting recommendations, many more countries are expected to begin implementing the system, though a significant number of countries will require assistance and additional resources for statistical data collection.” The UNDESA also said.

Furthermore, “As governments to the Convention on Biological Diversity get ready to agree and implement a framework that will recraft our relationship with nature, this new framework will provide an impetus for an accurate accounting of the value of biodiversity”, “In so doing, it is a step towards sustainable development.” says Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity in UNDESA
Challenges with the approach whose experimental procedures began around 2012 however also exist as,”Organizing information on the environment from a spatial perspective describ￾ing, in a coherent manner, linkages between ecosystems and economic and other human activity;(b) Applying a common, coherent and integrated set of concepts, classifications and terminology, thus providing a platform for the organization of data and research and testing;(c) Allowing connections to be made to environmental-economic information comipiled following the guidelines of the SEEA Central Framework. This should aid in the understanding of (i) the contribution of ecosystem services to economic production, consumption and accumulation, (ii) the attribution of degradation.” among other challenges as in the SEEA EA- 2012 ACCOUNTING EXPERIMENT handbook noted.

With constant actiontriggered around sustainable ecosystem management and mitigating the effects of climate change, implementation of the SEEA EA system opportunes environmental best practice opportunity within economies.

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