GFS and Other Macroeconomic Statistics 381
and development on environmental protection; and
the general administration, training, and teaching ac-
tivities oriented toward environmental protection.
A7.108 Resource management activities are those
activities whose primary purpose is preserving and
maintaining the stock of natural resources and hence
safeguarding against depletion. Th ese activities in-
clude, but are not limited to, reducing the withdrawals
of natural resources (including through the recov-
ery, reuse, recycling, and substitution of natural re-
sources); restoring natural resource stocks (increases
or recharges of natural resource stocks); the general
management of natural resources (including moni-
toring, control, surveillance, and data collection); and
the production of goods and services used to manage
or conserve natural resources.
A7.109 To account for environmental protection
and resource management activities the SEEA Central
Framework comprises the following types of tables
and accounts:
- Supply and use tables in physical and monetary
terms showing fl ows of natural inputs, products,
and residuals - Asset accounts for individual environmental as-
sets in physical and monetary terms showing
the stock of environmental assets at the begin-
ning and end of each accounting period and the
changes in the stock - A sequence of economic accounts that highlights
depletion-adjusted economic aggregates - Functional accounts that record transactions and
other information about economic activities un-
dertaken for environmental purposes.
Th e analysis of these data can also be extended by
linking the tables and accounts to relevant employ-
ment, demographic, and social information.
A7.110 Th e SEEA Central Framework relies on
basic environment statistics, such as statistics on
natural resources—for example water, energy, for-
est, fl ows of materials and pollutants—which are
usually collected for specifi c purposes. Th e SEEA
Central Framework adds value to individual infor-
mation components by bringing them together to
inform integrated policies, evaluate trade-off s be-
tween diff erent policies, and evaluate their impacts
across domains of the economy, the environment,
and society.
Linkages between GFS and SEEA Central Framework
A7.111 Th ere is a wide range of transactions and
stocks positions related to the environment that are
recorded in the GFS framework. Th e type of trans-
action oft en fl ows from governments’ role of owner
of natural resources, such as land and subsoil assets,
user of these resources, or other ways in which gov-
ernments infl uence the use of these resources by other
sectors, such as governments’ control over the use of
the atmosphere as a sink for pollution. Of particular
interest in this regard are fl ows of taxes and subsidies
related to the environment.
A7.112 Many of the mechanisms by which economic
behavior is infl uenced toward meeting environmental
policy objectives involve payments to government,
most commonly in the form of taxes, permits, and rent;
and payments by government in the form of subsidies
and other transfers. Th ese transactions are recorded
in the GFS framework but are generally not separately
identifi able as relating to the environment. In order
to allow comparisons of GFS and the SEEA Central
Framework, such data would need to be provided sepa-
rately in the underlying source data of GFS.
A7.113 Similar to GFS, the SEEA Central Frame-
work records only taxes and subsidies for which an
actual transaction takes place between institutional
units. In some cases there is interest in the value of so-
called implicit subsidies—for example, via tax exemp-
tions or preferential tax rates. However, as there are
no transactions recorded in relation to these amounts
they are not recorded in either dataset.
A7.114 Th e remainder of this section discusses pay-
ments to government related to the environment, and
payments by government related to the environment.^27Environmental payments to government
Environmental taxes
A7.115 Th e decision as to whether a payment re-
garded as a tax is environmental is based on consid-
eration of the tax base. An environmental tax is a tax
whose tax base is a physical unit (or a proxy of it) of
something that has a proven, specifi c, negative impact
on the environment. In practice, this defi nition is ap-
plied by looking at all of the various taxes levied in a(^27) See SEEA Central Framework, section 4.4, for a detailed descrip-
tion on accounting for transactions related to the environment.