E2: Environmental statistics and accounts; sustainable development

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Environmental subsidies and similar transfers (ESST) accounts record subsidies and other forms of government support measures (such as tax rebates, tax exemptions, tax credits, tax deferrals), that help to protect the environment. The accounts distinguish between subsidies (ESA2010 code D3), other current transfers (ESA2010 D6_D7), capital transfers (ESA2010 D9) and tax abatements. Data are broken down by receiving institutional sector and functional classifications of environmental protection and resource management (classifications CEPA and CReMA). ESST data are collected annually on a voluntary basis.

The data set covers the entire national economy as defined in National Accounts (ESA 2010, paragraph 2.04). The institutional sectors in ESA 2010 are non-financial corporations (sector S11), financial corporations (sector S12), general government (sector S13), households (sector S14), NPISH (sector S15), and the rest of the world (sector S2). ESST further groups these sectors for simplification. For example, S11 and S12 are grouped together. This is relevant because the groupings of sectors for ESST determines the data compilation and reporting.

In ESST the following sectors are distinguished:

-       General Government (S13) as provider and beneficiary of environmental subsidies and similar transfers;

-       Corporations (S11 and S12), NPISH (S15) and Households (S14) as beneficiaries of environmental subsidies and similar transfers;  

-       the Rest of the World (RoW) as beneficiary, or origin, of subsidies and similar transfers. The institutions of the EU and international organizations are included in ESST as part of the rest of the world sector.

This definition covers environmental subsidies and similar transfers that are current or capital transfers according to the SNA 2008 (and its European version, the ESA 2010). Tax abatements and other environmental support measures described in section 1.3 are not covered in this definition but are also covered by the data collection. The focus is on transfers’ flows from general government to the other sectors, plus transfers from (and to) the rest of the world (mainly from the institutions of European Union and in the framework of international cooperation).

Environmental protection (EP) includes all activities and actions which have as their primary purpose the prevention, reduction and elimination of pollution as well as any other degradation of the environment. Resource management (RM) includes the preservation, maintenance and enhancement of the stock of natural resources and hence safeguarding against depletion. EP and resource management RM subsidies and similar transfers to compensate any loss of revenue due to EP and RM are also included.

A comprehensive methodological guidance is provided in the Eurostat's ESST guidelines as well as in ESA2010.

ESST uses the same statistical units as national accounts.

The building block is the institutional unit which is defined as “an economic entity characterised by decision-making autonomy” (ESA 2010, paragraph 2.12). Institutional units are grouped in institutional sectors.

Environmental subsidies and similar transfers encompasses the flows between resident units and between resident units and the rest of the world. The focus are the flows from units of general government to the units in other institutional sectors, including transfers from (and to) the rest of the world (mainly from the institutions of European Union and in the framework of international cooperation). Resident units are defined as in ESA 2010.

EU Member States, EFTA countries, EU candidate countries and potential candidates.

Data for ESST are reported yearly on a voluntary basis. From 2011 onwards, about thirteen countries report data every year. 

Not applicable.

Millions of euro, Millions of national currency

Not applicable.

Confidential data are flagged "confidential" and not published.

Aggregates compiled based on confidential data respect Eurostat's confidentiality rules.Confidential data are flagged "confidential" and not published.

There is no official release calendar for the ESST data.

Data are published once the validation procedure has been completed.

Not applicable.

In line with the Community legal framework and the European Statistics Code of Practice Eurostat disseminates European statistics on Eurostat's website (see item 10 - 'Accessibility and clarity') respecting professional independence and in an objective, professional and transparent manner in which all users are treated equitably. The detailed arrangements are governed by the Eurostat protocol on impartial access to Eurostat data for users.

Data are disseminated simultaneously to all interested parties through a database update and on Eurostat's website.

Not available.

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The online database is available free of charge at:

http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/data/database

There is no separate Quality Report submitted by the countries along the questionnaire. However, one sheet of the excel questionnaire (‘metadata’) includes information provided by the country on quality of the reported data.

Validation procedures are in place.

For each data reporting round, Eurostat compiles a progress report, which is presented to the Working Group on Monetary Environmental Statistics and Accounts (MESA WG), encompassing representatives of all Member States, other reporting countries, Eurostat and other stakeholders.

Specific quality issues detected during the validation process, follow-up actions to ensure further quality improvements, changes to the data reporting templates and methodological guidance are discussed by the MESA WG. Agreed improvement measures are implemented for the subsequent reporting rounds.

There are no systematic studies of user satisfaction. Eurostat has regular hearings with European policymakers and contacts with the research community and other stakeholders to monitor the relevance of the statistics produced and identify new priorities.

Data is reported on a voluntary basis. Therefore, data availability and the length of time series vary across countries.

See point 11.1 above.

Eurostat assesses the accuracy of national data by systematically applying validation checks to all ESST data reported by countries.

The overall accuracy is considered to be good. 

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The comparability across countries of ESST is ensured by the common conceptual framework and guidelines for ESST updated and published in 2015. The validation checks by Eurostat enhance the comparability between countries, highlighting possible issues.

Comparability over time at country level is ensured by the common conceptual framework and guidelines for ESST. Still, the data is reported on a voluntary basis and time series is relatively short for some countries. 

Environmental subsidies and similar transfers have the same system boundaries as European System of Accounts (ESA).  This ensures a high level of coherence with the core national accounts. Eurostat cross-checks ESST data against data on government transfer expenditure from National Accounts (COFOG division 5) and data on transfers from Environmental Protection Expenditure Accounts (EPEA).

Currently there are certain linkages and overlaps between ESST accounts and the environmental protection expenditure accounts (EPEA), which already collect on a mandatory basis under Regulation (EU) 691/2011 some information on transfers. In particular, the EPEA module collects data on environmental protection transfers between units of the various institutional sectors of the economy and with the rest of the world. Transfers from/to the rest of the world enter in the calculation of the most important EPEA indicator, i.e. the national expenditure on environmental protection (NEEP).

In EPEA, environmental subsidies and similar transfers are defined in the same way as in ESST, i.e. transfers intended to support activities, which protect the environment and the use of environmental protection products. In both accounts, the core of data to be reported is constituted by transactions classified according to the European System of Accounts (ESA 2010) as current (D.3: Subsidies and D.7: other current transfers) or capital transfers (D.92 Investment grants and D.99 Other capital transfers).

The differences between the EPEA module, within the current scope of mandatory data reporting, and the proposed new ESST module are listed below:

• The proposed ESST data collection covers environmental protection and resource management while mandatory EPEA reporting covers only environmental protection.
• In ESST (as proposed), the non-profit institutions serving households (NPISH) sector is separated from general government, while EPEA records together the transactions of general government and NPISH.
• ESST (as proposed) includes social contributions and benefits (D6) under current transfers that are not included in EPEA.

The data reported by countries are internally coherent (totals are equal to the sum of the breakdowns). 

Not available.

Revision policy is set at the level of national authorities. The complete time-series of ESST data can be revised as consequence of changes in the methodology or updates of data sources used for the compilation or any other major benchmark revisions.

The published data should be regarded as final, unless otherwise stated.

The compilation of monetary environmental accounts builds in many countries upon statistics that are primarily collected for other purposes.

For the compilation of environmental subsidies and similar transfers the main data source used is national accounts (COFOG). Other data sources, for example state aid data and national databases can be used mainly as primary sources for tax abatements. Under WG 2022 agenda item 6 there is more information on the progress made in the data availability and quality as well as sources and methods in place for the ESST data compilation (see  WG document Annex).

The scope and frequency of ESST data collection are set based on a voluntary agreement with national statistical offices.

Eurostat undertakes a number of standard accuracy and plausibility checks and discusses the identified issues with the data compilers. The validation process is duly documented in country validation reports.

Eurostat carries out additional quality controls in its internal database when data are uploaded for dissemination.

For additional information on data validation please see: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/data/data-validation and point 11.1.

Data sources, methods and compilation techniques are country specific, but should be used in a way compliant with the definitions and accounting rules described in the ESST guidelines. 

Not applicable.

Norway’s data incorporate new developments for [TRF_CUR_XD3] Current transfers (excluding subsidies) and [D9] Capital transfers (dimension National accounts indicator (ESA 2010) [na_item]) for the period 2017-2020. This improvement has not been possible to be applied to previous periods (2016 and backwards) for the moment.

The change affects to those NA_ITEM in tables:

-          Environmental subsidies and similar transfers from general government, by environmental activity, sector of recipient and ESA category of transfer (env_esst_gg)

-          Environmental subsidies and similar transfers from general government to corporations, by environmental activity, ESA category of transfer and NACE Rev. 2 activity of recipient (env_esst_ggcp)

Norway has committed to provide updated data for 2016 and backwards as soon as possible.