Statistisches Bundesamt

G24 Physical Environmental-Economic Accounts

Statistisches Bundesamt

Gustav-Stresemann-Ring 11

65189 Wiesbaden

Air emissions accounts (AEA) record flows of gaseous and particulate materials emitted into the atmosphere as a result of economic activity.

AEA are a subset of environmental-economic accounts. They offer a detailed breakdown for 64 emitting economic activities (NACE), plus households, as defined in the national accounts of EU countries. They are aligned with economic statistics and GDP. These features make them suitable for integrated environmental-economic analyses and modelling – for example of 'carbon footprints' and climate-change modelling scenarios.

National Statistical Institutes (NSI) submit AEA to Eurostat through a mandatory annual data collection. The data collection includes an electronic questionnaire and this quality report.

The AEA dataset has the following dimensions:

1)           Air pollutant: Emissions to air of the following gaseous and particulate substances are collected (greenhouse gases, air pollutants):

Carbon dioxide without emissions from biomass (CO2),

Carbon dioxide from biomass (Biomass CO2)*,

Nitrous oxide (N2O), Methane (CH4),

Perfluorocarbons (PFCs),

Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs),

Sulphur hexafluoride (SF6) including nitrogen trifluoride (NF3),

Nitrogen oxides (NOx),

Non-methane volatile organic compounds, (NMVOC),

Carbon monoxide (CO),

Particulate matter < 10μm (PM10),

Particulate matter < 2,5μm (PM2,5),

Sulphur dioxide (SO2),

Ammonia (NH3)

2)           Geopolitical entity: EU Member States, EFTA Countries, Candidate Countries etc.

3)           Economic activities: include 64 sectors of economic activity (classified by NACE rev.2 A*64), and households’ consumption (3 sub-classes).

4)           Time: reference year for which air emissions are reported

5)           Unit: tonnes and thousand tonnes

The data refer to national economies as defined in the system of national accounts. Greenhouse gases and air pollutants emitted by resident units representing the national economy are covered.

Conceptually AEA belong to the international system of environmental economic accounting (SEEA-Central Framework). Furthermore, AEA is one of several physical modules of Eurostat's programme on European environmental economic accounts. It is covered by Regulation (EU) No.691/2011 on European environmental economic accounts.

AEA are closely related to concepts and definitions of national accounts. Most notably, they follow the residence principle, i.e. they record emissions related to resident unit's activities, regardless where those occur geographically. Emissions are reported separately for private households and several sectors of economic activity.

Further methodological guidelines are provided in various publications by Eurostat (see Eurostat website > Environment > Methodology, heading: 'Air emissions accounts').

Data refer to emissions by resident economic units in the sense of SEEA CF 2012 and National Accounts (ESA), i.e. different sectors of economic activities and private households.

The national economy is as defined in SEEA CF 2012 and National Accounts (ESA), i.e. all economic activities undertaken by resident units.

The reference area is the economic territory as defined in SEEA CF 2012 and National Accounts (ESA). A unit is said to be a resident unit of a country when it has a centre of economic interest in the economic territory of that country, that is, when it engages for an extended period (1 year or more) in economic activities in that territory.

By following this residence principle, the Air Emission Accounts record emissions from resident units' activities, regardless where they occur. This is the main conceptual difference to emission inventories for greenhouse gases (UNFCCC) and air pollutants (CLRTAP).

2000-2021

Not applicable because AEA are not reported as indices.

The unit of measure is tonnes or thousand tonnes.

F-gases (HFC, PFC, SF₆ and NF₃) are reported in tonnes of CO₂ equivalents.

SO_X are reported in tonnes of SO₂ equivalents, and NO_X are reported in tonnes of NO₂ equivalents.

The data refer to calendar years.

Air emissions accounts (AEA) are legally covered by Regulation (EU) 691/2011on European Environmental Economic Accounts.

On national level, compilation of Environmental-Economic Accounts in Germany is covered by the Federal Statistics Law, §1 and §3 Section 1 Number 13.

Not applicable at national level.

Not relevant because aggregated data are used for compilation only.

Not applicable.

There exists a release calendar accessible by the statistical offices of the Federation and the Länder. Data are published annually on September 30.

Release calendar is not publicly accessible.

Data are published annually at the same date (September 30) on our webpage. Data are accessible for all users at the same time.

Data are disseminated annually.

Currently, we do not publish press releases related to Air Emission Accounts regularly.

Results are published until September 30 via our database "GENESIS-Online" (cf. 10.3),

summary tables and figures via www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Gesellschaft-Umwelt/Umwelt/UGR/energiefluesse-emissionen /_inhalt.html.

AEA data can be accessed via our online data base "GENESIS-Online" (www-genesis.destatis.de), code 85111.

Data on number of consultations of our data tables are not available.

Not applicable because we use aggregated data only.

Not applicable.

Data on number of consultations of our metadata are not available.

The compilation method of German Air Emission Accounts is described in:

Methode der Luftemissionsrechnung, Statistisches Bundesamt 2019

https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Gesellschaft-Umwelt/Umwelt/UGR/energiefluesse-emissionen/Publikationen/Downloads/methode-luftemissionsrechnung-5851317199004.pdf

(German only).

Our methodological description covers the whole production process of German Air Emission Accounts.

There exists a methodological description (cf. 10.6) for Air Emission Accounts and a quality report for Environmental-Economic Accounting.

The Federal Statistical Office uses EFQM as quality management system. Within Environmental-Economic Accounts, we ensure data quality by cross-checking with internal and external reference data. We implement our quality management according to the European Statistics Code of Practice, cf. https://www.destatis.de/EN/Methods/Quality/QualityReports/code-practice.pdf

During the compilation process, we do cross-checks with internal and external reference data. Furthermore, we ensure that our results are compatible with benchmark values from German UNFCCC reporting by the German Federal Environmental Agency. Major parts of our compilation process are automated to ensure a stable data production.

In general, the compilation of Air Emission Accounts runs in a stable routine. We estimate that the majority of results is high quality. For some parts, e.g. the service sector or heating of small-scale users like e.g. workshops, we use auxiliary data to distribute an aggregate benchmark value. Data quality significantly depends on the auxiliary data used. Any of the auxiliary data has its advantages and drawbacks, e.g. in case we use production values it may be possible that the real physical emission of gases does not correlate perfectly with these monetary values. This can occur in particular for the service sector, where Eurostat requires reporting of data that is even more disaggregated than our national publications.

We ensure internal coherence of our results by using the same data sources for the whole reporting period as fas as possible. External compatibility with UNFCCC data is guaranteed as we use German UNFCCC reporting data as our main data source.

Our data are used by the German Federal Government, e.g. the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety ans Consumer Protection, the Federal Environmental Agency, research institutes, universities and interested citizens.

User needs are very heterogeneous: While some require only key indicators and very aggregated information, others would like to receive data on a very detailed level, e.g. emissions from production of a specific good. We check thoroughly which level of disaggregation is reasonable based on the data sources used. Occasional user inquiries that go beyond that level of detail have to be denied.

We determine user satisfaction by observing the incoming user inquiries carefully. Meetings and congresses are held at irregular intervals with selected users. Here we explain our procedures and present our publications.

The data are available for mandatory delivery periods. One exception is data on the bridging item “National fishing vessels operating abroad”, in spite of real effort we did not succeed in filling in this position. Our main data source does not provide this information and we could not develop any procedure to differentiate the bridging items accordingly.

Not applicable; To ensure comparability, this will be calculated and provided by EUROSTAT in the European quality report using a standardised method.

See Annex 1.

Not applicable because data are not based on a sample survey.

Not applicable because data are not based on a sample survey.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Time lag is normally 21 months. Timeliness majorly depends on the availability of our data sources.

21 months.

21 months.

21 months.

Due to stable compilation procedures, there is usually no time lag.

No time lag.

AEA are compiled according to harmonised guidelines provided by Eurostat and hence comparable across European countries reporting AEA to Eurostat.

Not applicable.

See Annex 2.

Not applicable; To ensure comparability, this will be calculated and provided by EUROSTAT in the European quality report using a standardised method.

We ensure coherence with UNFCCC reporting by using these data as our main data source. Furthermore, we use energy accounts data for cross-checking within Environmental-Economic Accounts.

Air Emission Accounts are part of Environmental-Economic Accounts. Their aim is to provide a complete, coherent overall picture of the relations between environment and economy.To this end, we refer to specific concepts like e.g. the residence principle. This implies that AEA overall sums are not 100% compatible with other data on air emissions by intention. However, the connection to other concepts is made clear by reporting several bridging items.

Since 2022 our national publication is also structured according to sectors of economic activity (NACE). In previous national publications there were used homogeneous production branches (CPA) instead, which had limited comparability. Since PEFA has also converted its classification to NACE in 2023, comparability is guaranteed.

Not applicable, because AEA data are annual.

Air Emission Accounts are consistent with the European System of Accounts (ESA).

For a given year, internal coherence is ensured by careful data compilation and cross-checking. For time series, there may occur breaks due to methodological developments, cf. Annex 2.

No burden for respondents as we do not conduct a survey. Personnel costs arise for research on data sources, methodological development and for the compilation of results. Efficiency of the compilation process has been increased recently by automatting major parts of the calculation.

We do not publish preliminary data. We revise the whole time series annually, by using revised sources.

We revise the whole time series annually, by using revised sources. Revised data are published simultaneously with data on the most recent year, i.e. on September 30.

This year the comparison with the previous publications shows larger deviations in the breakdown by economic sectors, as major revisions in manufacturing and in trade in services were taken over from PEFA.

Not applicable; To ensure comparability, this will be calculated and provided by EUROSTAT in the European quality report using a standardised method.

annual

Collection and processing of aggregated statistical data from different internal and external sources (cf. 18.1).

We validate our data through comparisons with the previous year, checking of time series consistency and cross-checks with internal and external reference data, e.g. other modules of the environmental economic accounts. Furthermore, we ensure that our results are compatible with benchmark values from German UNFCCC reporting by the German Federal Environmental Agency. Finally, we use validation routines provided by Eurostat.

not applicable.

Not applicable.

We use the information in the ZSE-Database which serves for German UNFCCC reporting provided by the Umweltbundesamt as main data source. For a major part of emissions, this information is sufficient for allocating emission amounts to economic sectors, as the database contains emission amounts from specific production processes which we can clearly assign to a certain economic sector. For the remaining part of emissions, we have to spread them across several NACE codes using complementary information from our national energy balance and from energy statistics and from national accounts (cf. 18.1).

Recently, the ZSE database offers more detailed information on process-related emissions, with which we have been able to improve the assignment to NACE. This resulted in major revisions compared to earlier versions.

The main source is the Transport Emission Model (TREMOD) provided by ifeu-Institut, Heidelberg.

The Transport model (national concept) is calculated according to vehicle types, fuel types and Information of private or the branch of commercial vehicle owners.
We applied a new calculation method from reporting year 2017 onwards. The new model is no longer based on the vehicle fleet but on detailed data on the mileage and energy consumption of 39 industrial sectors (based on NACE classification) and private households in Germany from TREMOD.

The model contains 12 vehicle types and 8 types of fuel.
Based on the production values, the 39 commercial branches are further split into 72 sectors. For the derivation of the data according to the residence concept, key figures of the residents' mileage are used separately with respect to vehicle type as well as gasoline and diesel vehicles.The Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA) publishes the statistics "Traffic in kilometers" annually starting from 2014 (determination of residents' mileage based on data from the main inspections of vehicles). The average fuel consumption of the vehicles from TREMOD is used to calculate the energy consumption of residents. The method now is based on consumption and not on sales. We calculate now domestic consumption and consumption by residents. The associated emissions result from the corresponding factors.

The new method guarantees a harmonization of the emission calculation with the Physical Energy Flow Accounts (PEFA), because the data source has been unified.

Aviation: on basis of an extra processing of transport statistics by airlines (domestic, foreign) and own estimates.

Sea transport: on basis of monetary data on bunkering and data on domestic bunkering by ships (in a breakdown of national and foreign ships).

Land transport: see 18.5.3.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.