Integration of the environment in national accounting

Policy making needs to be supported by data. The national accounts have been designed to guide economic policy. However, the organization of society requires more than economic policy alone. Social and environmental issues are also important for human wellbeing. Satellite accounts to the national accounts are created to take this into account. This paper presents the United Nations System of Environmental-Economic Accounts, an extensive theoretical framework for environmental-economic accounting, as well as some results obtained on the basis of the implementation of a set of environmental-economic accounts for Belgium.