Green accounting for a sustainable economy - Policy use and analysis of environmental accounts in the Philippines

Statisticians avoid getting involved in data analysis, leaving data users o n their own in interpreting the results of their work. This is particularly unfortunate in a new area of applied statistics such as environmental acco unting with which few are really familiar. Earlier this year data producers and users explored, in a national seminar, possible policy applications of the results of a 'green accounting' project in the Philippines. The main f indings of the author's contribution to the seminar, on which the present p aper is based, are that environmental accounts: (1) present evidence of sus tainable economic performance in the country during the relatively short-ti me period of 1988-1994; (2) provide information for environmental cost inte rnalization; (3) may guide investment to environmentally sound production p rocesses; (4) help to specify and monitor policies of natural wealth conser vation, distribution and management; and (5) reveal major data gaps. The pa per concludes that environmental accounts help to assess the sustainability of economic growth in terms of broadly defined capital maintenance. The su stainability of development, however, would have to be measured by alternat ive or supplementary physical indicators linked to quantifiable standards o r targets. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.