The first draft of CICES was tabled for discussion in December 2009 by the European Environment Agency (EEA). There then followed two rounds of consultation with the international community in 2010 and 2011. Much of the work focussed on the meetings organised by the EEA that involved the technical experts linked with the UNSD initiative to revise the System of Economic and Environmental Accounts.

In the light of the discussion that have grown up around CICES, and as we move to the final set of proposals on SEEA that will be tabled in February 2013, it is now appropriate that a further round of consultation with the international community takes place.

Although the broad structure of CICES has remained the same these discussions have meant that changes have been made overtime. Thus:

• The first two versions can be found in the archive section of this website which links them to the various discussion papers.

• Version 3 which was developed for the meeting of the expert meeting on ecosystem accounts organised by the UNSD in December 2011 in London, which as been used more widely, formed the basis form the basis of the most recent round of discussions. It was first presented (UNCEEA-7-10) to the Seventh Meeting of the UN Committee of Experts on Environmental-Economic Accounting Rio de Janeiro, 11-13 June 2012.

• The structure of  CICES V4 is now the subject for the current round of discussion. In the paper tabled at Rio it was noted that “in general, the conceptual alignment is well developed and hence significant change to this version of CICES is not expected”. However, further consultation with relevant experts was felt to be necessary to clarify some remaining issues from the accounting perspective. The EEA also identify that some further consultation is required, to ensure that CICES remains at the core of EU efforts to develop a consistent classification of ecosystem services for ecosystem mapping.

• The key issues surrounding the consultation on Version 4 were presented as a briefing document  (CICES v 4 Consultation Briefing Note) that can be downloaded ising the link. 

• The final report on the latest round of consultation was presented to the EEA in December 2012, and this formed the basis for the response to the feedback on the SEEA Revision invited by the UNSD, which closed on 15th January, 2013. The current version of CICES (V4.3) and the accompanying report can now be downloaded:

CICES V4.3

Report on Consultation, August-December 2012

• The feedback prepared on the Revision of the SEEA can be found by following this link.