FROM GREEN GNP TO THE SUSTAINABILITY GAP: RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMIC ACCOUNTING

Paul Ekins ()
Additional contact information
Paul Ekins: School of Politics, International Relations and the Environment, Keele University, Staffordshire ST5 5BG, UK

Journal of Environmental Assessment Policy and Management (JEAPM), 2001, vol. 03, issue 01, 61-93

Abstract: It is now generally accepted that the national accounts which give a comprehensive overview of national economic activity should also account for the way the economy uses, and often has a negative impact on, the environment. However, a number of areas of uncertainty and disagreement remain as to how this should be carried out, involving such issues as whether Net National Product (NNP) is a measure of production or of economic welfare, whether environmental damage can be adequately valued for the purpose of the national accounts, how the macroeconomic aggregates can be adjusted for environmental impacts, and the correct treatment of defensive expenditures. On the basis of a review of these and other issues, the paper's principal conclusion is that there is no methodologically sound and operationally feasible way of deriving a figure for Green GNP by subtracting figures pertaining to environmental degradation or depletion from GNP, but that it is possible to calculate a "sustainability gap" for the economy, in either physical or monetary terms. When expressed as a ratio of GDP, this gives an indicator of the "unsustainability intensity" of economic activity, comparable to the energy intensity indicator that is already in wide use.

Keywords: environmental accounting; sustainability gap; green GNP (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2001
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S1464333201000558
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wsi:jeapmx:v:03:y:2001:i:01:n:s1464333201000558

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from

DOI: 10.1142/S1464333201000558

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Environmental Assessment Policy and Management (JEAPM) is currently edited by Thomas Fischer

More articles in Journal of Environmental Assessment Policy and Management (JEAPM) from World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tai Tone Lim ().