CICES

There is at present con­sid­er­able inter­na­tional effort dir­ec­ted towards revis­ing the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA), first out­lined in 2003. As part of this work the United Nations Statistical Division (UNSD) has com­mis­sioned a UN Committee of Experts on Environmental-Economic Accounting (UNCEEA) to develop “Experimental Ecosystem Accounts”. The goal is to cir­cu­late a draft for global con­sulta­tion in mid-2012 and pre­pare a final draft for endorse­ment by the United Nations Statistical Commission in February 2013.

The devel­op­ment of a Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services (CICES) forms part of this work.

The idea for CICES arose in December 2008, at a meet­ing hos­ted by the European Environment Agency (EEA), UNEP and the German Federal Ministry of Environment. It was recog­nised that there was a need to develop a new stand­ard clas­si­fic­a­tion of eco­sys­tem ser­vices that was con­sist­ent with accep­ted cat­egor­isa­tions but which allowed easy trans­la­tion of stat­ist­ical inform­a­tion between dif­fer­ent applications.

Following the ini­tial meet­ing a fur­ther work­shop on CICES was hos­ted by the EEA in Copenhagen in December 2009, and e-forum was launched on this site from November 2009 to January 2010. The forum allowed enable a wider inter­na­tional audi­ence to com­ment on the issues relat­ing to the CICES concept. As a res­ult of the feed­back gained a revised pro­posal was pre­pared and presen­ted to the UNCEEA Committee in June 2010.

A copy of the pro­posal can be down­loaded via this link.

Since 2010 the dis­cus­sion of the CICES pro­posal has con­tin­ued. The cur­rent update paper has been pre­pared for an expert meet­ing on eco­sys­tem accounts to be hos­ted by the UK Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), on behalf of UNSD, the EEA and the World Bank, in December 2011. Once again com­ment from the wider com­munity is invited.

By regis­ter­ing at this site you can down­load the most recent dis­cus­sion paper, leave a com­ment or give more dir­ect feed­back via e-mail. Registration also gives you access to the archive dis­cus­sion. It also means that we can keep you updated.