Measuring Progress on “Greening” the Economy: Policies and Practices An International Technical Workshop UNEP-Eurostat-EEA-ILO Geneva, 14-15 May 2014

Geneva, 14 May 2014 - This workshop, co-organised by UNEP, Eurostat, the European Environment Agency (EEA) and the International Labour Organization (ILO), will bring together statisticians, analysts and policymakers from agencies and countries involved in measuring Environmental Goods and Services Sector (EGSS) to take stock of recent experiences. The workshop, made possible by the generous support of the European Commission and the International Climate Initiative of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety, is aimed at motivating widespread application of the EGSS measurement framework.

Measuring progress on greening is an important pathway to sustainable development. The two priority areas for green economy indicator development are those that assess the “greening” of conventional economic activities and those that assess the growing share of “green” or environment-related sectors.

The EGSS, which encompasses both priority areas, is thus a key element for facilitating the “greening” of the economy. While by no means the last word on the subject, the EGSS accounting framework developed by Eurostat and embedded in the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) Central Framework adopted by the UN Statistical Commission at its 43rd session in 2012, offers a tool that provides descriptions and specifications of activities to be counted as environmental activities and for estimating the “share of green economic activities”, in terms of revenue, value-added, employment and exports.

This workshop builds on a previous event hosted by UNEP in 2011 in Geneva. Its purpose is to take stock of developments in the field and bring together various stakeholders to share ideas, as well as get a sense of the diverse conceptions of EGSS. It will also focus on important policy issues such as green jobs and trade opportunities in relation to the EGSS framework, and endeavor to bring about an outcome inventory of the various approaches to EGSS based on individual policy needs.

Background documents

Summary Report

Report on EGSS workshop_Geneva_May_2014.pdf

Presentations and Reports