Environmental Goods and Services Sector: New reporting requirements and basic data needed

Abstract

This document presents the results and work undertaken in the pilot study on the Environmental Goods and Services Sector (EGSS) according to Eurostat grant agreement no. 50904.2012.004-2012438. The main objectives of this pilot study have been to:  Identify the requirements for variables and data related to the proposed inclusion of the module of EGSS in the EU-regulation 691/2011 on environmental accounting.  Identify possible existing data sources as well as identifying those areas of the EGS-sector where basic data do not exist.  Identify the expected costs and future working tasks that would be necessary to undertake and/or check before Statistics Norway can comply with the requirements in the proposed reporting from 2017.  Examine the international and the national use and demands for statistics covering the EGS-sector. We have based our studies on the draft regulation of the EGSS module amending Regulation 691/2011 on European environmental economic accounts (as of 2.5.2013) and the draft questionnaire for the EGSS legal module. Conclusions and main findings:  Compilation of statistics for the EGS-sector is to be carried out using already existing statistical sources.  Very few existing statistics could serve as a direct source for statistics for the EGS-sector with the required level of detail.  The National Accounts can, only for some few NACE-industries, be used as a source.  Using so-called “CPA-product-lists” for direct identification of environmental goods and services does not seem to be a useful approach, since the product categorisation in the National Accounts is too aggregated for the purpose of environmental goods and services.  Using other existing statistics (indirect sources) in order to identify a proportion of the CPA-products that can be defined as an environmental good or service is the approach that seems most applicable and will be tested when taking this work a step further (e.g. Prodcom-statistics).  Establishing the figures for the output table of environmental goods and services seems to be essential in order to compile the other requested data for value added, export and employment in the EGS-sector. Further work will therefore primarily be focused on the compilation of the output table.  Although not obligatory, we will look into the possibilities of splitting the reporting between the connected products and the adapted products. The reason for this is that we expect the uncertainty to be bigger in the figures for the adapted products than for the connected products.  Particular work with identifying the adapted goods is needed. Certain criteria must be established. Future work will be undertaken in close cooperation with the EPEA-work.