DP 262 - The State Of The Art Of Environmental Economic Water And Forest Accounts In Brazil: Overview And Evolution

Geraldo Sandoval Góes, José Antônio Sena, Vinicius Pacheco De Almeida, Mário Jorge Mendonça e Marco José Melo Neves /Brasilia, December de 2021      

Brazil’s Environmental Economic Accounts represent a multi-year effort to incorporate the use of natural resources theme through the country’s economic activities. The strong connection between SEEA (System pf Environmental-Economic Accounting: Central Framework) and the SNA (System of National Accounts) provides an important information base for the extraction of different sets of basic macroeconomic statistics that allow indicators focused on the environment to be seen within a context more oriented towards the economy and, therefore accessible to a wider audience. Understanding the relationship between economy and environment came to help decision-making processes of policy makers.

The construction of a System of Environmental Economic Accounts in Brazil represents a step forward in the sense of incorporating essential elements that reflect the contribution of the use of natural resources in each territory to the economic activity of that space.

Attributing a value to natural resources, such as water, forest, or carbon stock, has always proved to be extremely difficult and complicated. The valuation of natural capital is an instrument that seeks to estimate an economic value or, in other words, to price the goods and services provided by nature. For this it is necessary to stipulate a plausible economic value, this is done through the relationship between what the environment can provide and the value of other goods and services already existing in the economy. With the economic valuation of natural capital, it is possible to attribute a monetary value to the resources of the environment.

The Environmental Economic Accounts are a form of measurement and analysis structured by a set of tables, which allows understanding the interactions between the environment and the economy, supporting planning and decision-making for public and business policies. This structured set of information is designed in an integrated manner with the National Accounts System, which allows planners and decision makers in a country or region to monitor the extent to which economic activity mobilizes resources in the generation of monetary wealth.

This paper aims to report the construction process of Environmental Economic Accounts for Water in Brazil and its institutional articulation between national and international public and private institutions, who participated in this construction effort. It also presents the current stage of construction of the Environmental Economic Accounts for Forest in Brazil.

The first section consists of this brief introduction. The second section presents the historical background of the implementation of Environmental Economic Accounts in Brazil and how studies and initiatives that have been carried out in Brazil have evolved since environmental accounting and its relationship with GDP gained importance. The third section brings the construction of an institutional platform for the implementation of SEEA in Brazil, as well as bottlenecks and challenges transposed in this process. The fourth section shows the relevance of the Environmental Economic Accounts for Water (SEEA-Water) to the National Water Resources Policy (PNRH). The fifth section presents the Environmental Economic Accounts for Water (SEEA-Water) in Brazil: First Results (2013-2017). In the sixth section, the process of building the Environmental Economic Accounts for Forestry in Brazil is discussed. The seventh and final section ends with a brief conclusion.

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