IMEA Final Report

 

Evaluation of the Environmental Accounting Methods for the assessment
of global environmental impacts of traded goods and services

 

Workshop - March 20th, 2009

 

Accounting the environmental burden of Europe with a worldwide

trans-boundary perspective

Why this workshop ?

 

> Clarifying expectations and objectives for assessing the environmental burdens of products, companies, sectors and countries

> Presenting the state of the art in environmental accounting modeling possibilities (Life Cycle Analysis, MFA, IOA, Footprinting) & discussing fututre developments

> Setting the first steps towards an integrated accounting framework for traded goods & services

 

The IMEA methodological framework considering the specificities of imported goods & services have been discussed. This framework is based on the following research questions:

 

> Is a generic methodology adequate to assess the large range of environmental issues related to trans-boundary exchanges ?

> Can it be flexible enough to account for the environmental specificities, the diversity of regions and of products?

> What is the currently achievable with existing EAM (Environmental Accounting Methods) and datasets, alone or in combination ?

> What are the methodological and data improvements required to get a consistent basket of methodologies: for a descriptive analysis of the current situation, forecasting and modelling?

 

Presentations list:

 

The need for a framework and adequate indicators

  1. Life Cycle indicators for the Data Centres on resources, products and wastes (U. Pretato - JRC)
  2. Establishing a “basket of indicators” to monitor the use of natural resources (G.Dige - EEA)
  3. IMEA analytical framework (D. Friot)

IMEA project

  1. Accounting the environmental burden of Europe with a worldwide trans-boundary perspective > LCA (A.Vercalsteren - VITO)
  2. Material flow accounts > MFA (I. Mäenpää - Oulu)
  3. Environmental extended Input/Ouput method > EE I/O (A. Tukker - TNO)
  4. Environmental Footprints: Land and Water Assessments (J. Steinberger - IFF)

Reporting works on EAMs (Environmental Accounting Methods)

  1. Development of a methodology for the assessment of global environmental impacts of traded goods and services > EIPOT (T. Wiedmann)
  2. Environmental (Management) Accounting The Micro Macro Link (C.Jasch)
  3. External Costs: A Tool for Internalizing Imported Pollution (A. Rabl)