IMEA: IMports Environmental Accounting: towards an integrated framework
Résumé
The ability of dealing with exchanges and regional specificities of existing Environmental Accounting Methodologies (EAM) e.g. LCA MFA environmental footprints or environmentally extended Input-Output is currently explored by national agencies as well as the business community. Existing EAMs are challenged on multiple grounds: treatment of imports trans-boundary pollution or practical relevance for specific goods and services. The EU SKEP ERA-NET is funding the IMEA (IMport Environmental Accounting) project to provide a state-of-the-art review of environmental accounting methodologies and a reflection on their adaptation to trans-national issues. IMEA aims at proposing guidelines for developing a context-relevant integrated methodology for assessing trans-boundary issues i.e. exchanges of goods services and environmental burdens. IMEA project raises the following issues. (1) Is a generic methodology adequate to assess the large range of environmental issues related to trans-boundary exchanges ? Can it be flexible enough to account for environmental specificities the diversity of regions and of products? (2) What is currently achievable with existing EAM and datasets alone or in combination? (3) What are the methodological and data improvements required to get a consistent basket of methodologies: for a descriptive analysis of the current situation forecasting and modeling ? The analytical framework considers the following dimensions: (a) environmental reporting (b) coverage (c) quality and reliability (d) trans-boundary ability (e) integration potential (f) extensibility and (g) support to policy making. These dimensions are explored along various stages i.e. data sources system and boundaries calculation (weighting conversion factors normalization) and final environmental indicators. We will present general results of the project and focus on some of the key outputs for the industrial ecology community. Further information is available on www.imea-eu.org.