Note by the secretariat
1. At the invitation of the Government of Finland, the Joint ECE/EUROSTAT Work Session on Specific Methodological Issues in Environment Statistics was held in Helsinki from 19 to 22 September 1994. It was attended by Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Republic of Moldova, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russian Federation, Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the WHO-ECEH were also in attendance.
2. Ms. Hilkka Vihavainen (Finland) chaired the meeting.
3. Mr. Heikki Salmi, Acting Director General, opened the Work Session. He emphasized the importance of international cooperation in furthering the development of environment statistics. He identified some methodological issues which had changed in focus since 1983, when the first meeting had been held in Helsinki. He also reminded the participants of Statistics Finland's long traditions in the field of environment statistics. The participants appreciated the excellent organisation of the Work Session by Statistics Finland, which had contributed to lively discussions of the issues.
4. The following issues were discussed, on the basis of the documents submitted to the Work Session:
(a) Waste and recycling statistics
(b) Collection of environmental data through sampling: Development of statistical environmental survey programmes
(c) Statistics on the marine environment
(d) CES pilot study on physical environmental accounting and current issues of environmental accounting
(e) Environmental indexes
(f) Needs of transition countries in the field of environment statistics
5. In addition, a conference room paper and presentation regarding the state of the environment statistics was provided by The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Likewise, Canada presented their land accounts project. The participants of the meeting thanked the authors for the high quality of their papers. It was appreciated that the statistical offices and other relevant institutions had provided the necessary resources for the preparation of the documents, which gave the meeting a good basis for its discussion.
6. The conclusions reached at the Work Session are presented (in English only) in Annex I to this note. Annex II provides the list of working papers.
7. Related to item (f), the Conference's work on environment statistics as a whole was discussed. In the discussion, fauna and flora statistics were generally considered to be of high priority for future conceptual work. Other areas of conceptual work identified being important were physical environmental accounting and statistics on the pressures on water bodies. In addition, the secretariat was asked to inform the Work Session next year on the activities regarding statistics on environment-related agricultural statistics. Regarding methodological work, survey design for the compilation of environment statistics, especially as regards waste statistics, was proposed as a possible subject for the "Readings" type of publication. More generally, it appeared that waste statistics ought to continue to be one of the priorities for the Conference's methodological work on environment statistics.
8. The Work Session proposed the inclusion of the following in the work programme of the Conference:
5.1 Standards and frameworks for environmental data and indicators
Methodology: (a) Organization of joint 1995/96 work session (with Eurostat) on (i) Geographical information for environment statistics, (ii) Methods used for satellite and physical accounting, (iii) Use of modelling in the production of environmental information, (iv) Indicators of the quality of environmental media, (v) Statistical aspects of authorization and regulation of emissions and environmental standards, and (vi) Development of sustainability indicators; (b) Consideration, in specific task forces, of methodological aspects of the development of environment statistics as a whole and in defined areas, and (c) Preparation, if and when required, of 'readings volumes' of methods used in the collection, compilation and dissemination of environment statistics.
Documentation: Working Papers 6, 8, 9, 3 and 10
1. Both the documentation and the discussion under this item made it obvious that many countries have recently launched projects for the purpose of collecting better statistics on waste, either by carrying out surveys or through pilot projects that look into the possibilities of new data provisions. The main efforts are being made to improve databases regarding waste from industrial activities. None of the proposed data collection schemes included wastes that typically arise from the agricultural sector. One reason for this was thought to be that agricultural data collections/estimations are often conducted outside statistical offices, who on the other hand are given the task of collecting statistics on industrial and municipal waste.
2. The idea was welcomed that waste statistics should be derived from the identification of related problems and their data requirements. However, there was no agreement about their scope. Some countries seem to favour a narrower approach, with the aim of producing a solid set of basic information for waste management purposes. Other countries seem to prefer a broader standpoint, from which waste statistics appear to have connections with a wide range of environmental problems, or with various aspects of material cycling. From even a wider perspective, waste statistics could be seen as being part of material flow analysis or material balances. It was pointed out that environment statisticians cannot always freely define the scope of their surveys, as many elements of the study may be predetermined by the related legislation.
3. The possibility of linking waste statistics with other data systems was considered to be an important condition for further development of waste statistics. A good example of this is the Swedish project on ecocycling statistics. The data requirements of this project are such that it would be essential to be able to combine statistics from many existing sources, eg data on material inputs into the economy with recycling statistics. Compatibility with other data systems and registers would also be necessary for checking the data for consistency. Possibilities for this type of linking were seen to be limited at present. It was a common experience that eg industrial statistics do not meet the requirements of waste and recycling statistics in the best possible way, and that things are not even improving in this respect. Non-uniform coding systems, inadequate product classifications, and lack of physical data were a few examples of the shortcomings mentioned in this context.
4. The discussion revealed that many methodological problems are still associated with the production of adequate waste information. These problems, from the methodological point of view, do not necessarily vary from one country to another. The problems can be broadly divided into conceptual ones and to those relating to data collection. Conceptual problems concern definitions and classifications to be used in waste statistics. Data collection problems refer
to the selection of survey methods and the possible flaws in each of them. Each of the problem areas are dealt with separately under the headings indicated below:
Definitions
5. The definition of waste has not ceased to trouble those who carry out waste surveys. Experiences obtained from several surveys show that respondents often have difficulties in accepting the given definition of waste or tend to interpret it in their own way. In particular, the demarcation line between waste proper and other type of residuals remains ambiguous. To avoid these problems to some extent, internal recycling/reuse was excluded from the definition of waste in Norway, whereas in Finland, it was included for reasons of data consistency, with respect to both physical and monetary data. In the Netherlands, a distinction was made between process dependent and process independent waste, with apparently good results. In another country, this distinction was not considered to be without problems.
Classifications
6. At the heart of waste statistics are classifications and nomenclatures. The present practice is that countries apply their own classifications of waste. Some countries are happy with relatively aggregated and short lists of waste, while some others consider it central to use more comprehensive and detailed lists. The choice is often a compromise between data needs and actual data collection possibilities. Sometimes, and this is mostly the case for hazardous wastes, data requirements are set by respective legislation. As shown by the Swedish example, the compilation of relevant waste and recycling statistics may necessitate modification of classifications used in other fields of statistics, notably those of economic statistics (eg product classifications). Fortunately, there seems to be growing interest in this type of methodological work among environment statisticians.
7. Countries who have not yet commenced with systematic compilation of waste data considered the absence of a harmonized international classification as a hindrance to the development of their waste statistics. Eurostat has proposed an EU legal text (council regulation) setting up a regular system of waste surveys. This text will contain, as an annex, a statistical nomenclature of waste. Eurostat is responsible for developing this nomenclature with the assistance of the French Institute for the Environment (IFEN) and a steering group which will include the European Environmental Agency. The nomenclature is derived from the European Waste Catalog (EWC) in a joint project with the Conference of European Statisticians. However, the use of EWC, as it stands now, as a basis for the preparation of a standard waste classification was not seen unproblematic. The way in which waste producing activities on one hand and waste materials, on the other, are mixed in EWC, was one of the reasons mentioned that make the present EWC inappropriate for statistical purposes. This problem can be avoided to some extent by using the most desegregated level of EWC and reorganising it.
Data collection
8. Most countries who actually carry out waste surveys have opted for sample surveys, in order to estimate generated waste amounts. They are cheaper than total surveys, quicker to carry out, and when well designed, capable of producing sufficiently reliable estimates. Sample surveys are not without problems, however, as became evident in the course of the discussions under this and the next item. It seems that at present standard sampling strategies are applied to waste surveys. There is a risk that these methods are not effective in this context. Both Norway and the Netherlands announced that they have plans to study further the sampling scheme currently used in their surveys. In the favour of total surveys, it was argued that the results of 'base-line' surveys could be used for many purposes, including a better sample design.
9. Preliminary results from Finland show that even within specific industrial branches, there is a poor correlation between the amount of waste generated and auxiliary variables, such as 'number of employees'. Therefore variables such as 'kg per employee' may be unsatisfactory for purposes of extrapolation. Instead, there is growing evidence that production of waste is relatively specific to some industrial processes. This gave rise to questions about stratification: should it rather take place with respect to certain processes/technologies, and if so, what would this mean in terms of data collection. It was agreed that a closer look at waste producing processes would be an important topic for future methodological discussions.
10. In Norway, interviewers are used in addition to questionnaires to collect waste data from the sampled units. This was thought to minimize the problems related to filling in questionnaires (eg those associated with the definitions, the identification of item numbers, etc.). Further, interviewers, coming from the municipalities selected for the study, were of much help in identifying reporting units and right contact persons. It was pointed out in the discussion that interviewers themselves might have an effect on the results obtained, and that this effect should therefore be checked. The use of local interviewers gave rise to questions about confidentiality of the survey results. In order to increase the cost-efficiency of a survey, a combined use of questionnaires and interviewers in a systematic manner was proposed by several speakers.
11. Perhaps the single most important problem of collecting waste data is that the respondents frequently simply do not know the amounts of waste generated. Waste streams are not followed systematically, eg with the help of a proper book-keeping system. Rather, waste amounts have to be estimated indirectly from different sources, which may not yield reliable results. This is particularly true of smaller enterprises. Bigger ones are better prepared, and this may cause some bias in the estimates. There are also differences as to which waste data are available: for some data collection units, it is the information on waste treatment that poses problems, or the composition of waste is unknown.
Documentation: Working Papers 1 and 2
12. Two projects of a different nature were presented under this item. In Finland, application of different sampling strategies to collecting data on environmental expenditures have been investigated. Analysis of the study variables, whose distribution was found to be very skewed, showed that commonly used sampling methods, such as stratified simple random sampling, would have had serious adverse effects on the accuracy of the estimates. No further stratification would have resulted in sufficiently homogeneous strata, because of the high variation of sample units even within the strata. Consequently, stratified systematic sampling with probabilities proportional to size was found to be much more effective, enabling the selection of a larger sample of large establishments. The Finnish study also brought about important theoretical results regarding the allocation of a sample (in such a way that small sample units also were representative), the use of point vs. ratio estimators, and non-response adjustment.
13. Results from the Finnish experiments were considered to be of high quality, and of value in further developing sampling schemes for environmental surveys. Indeed, they imply a new critical look at results obtained from any survey, where business and similar registers have been used as a sample frame. It was stressed that designing sampling effectively would actually save a lot of cost. However, sample design can mainly affect errors that are due to sampling itself and non-response. It was evident from the discussion that the size of the measurement error could not be considered negligible in environmental surveys. At worst, they can exceed the sample error many times. A well-known example is the difficulty to distinguish between process-integrated and purely environmental investments, as a result of which the estimates may have an intolerable error margin. The meeting was informed of a Swiss pilot survey of environmental expenditures. Since the survey was facultative, the drawn sample had to be adjusted to specific branch suggestions, in order to ensure higher response rate.
14. The German project, the second contribution under this item, is set in the broader context of environmental-economic accounting, and concerns a part of one subject field, namely the changes in landscape and flora. The method chosen for the purpose of studying these changes was ecological area sampling. Aspiration and methodology for the project sprang from a similar project in Great Britain. The ecological area sampling comprises three stages: total census, micro census and panels. At each stage, the territory is stratified: first, into broad spatial categories on the basis of 'constant' physical data; then into biotopes with certain biotic characteristics; and finally, within the biotopes, small spots are identified and surveyed for vegetation. The method makes use of maps and other sources of spatial data combined with field surveys. Less than 0.3 per cent of the total area would be surveyed at the second stage. In Germany, biotope sampling is planned to be more detailed than in Great Britain.
15. The discussion focused, among other things, on indicators to be used in the study. These were told to be of two kinds: specific and general, and they come from various on-going research projects and institutes. Questions were put forward whether the proposed sampling system would be suitable for capturing certain ecologically relevant but spatially limited vegetation changes and how these changes should actually be interpreted. Some speakers were interested in knowing more about the potential users of the information provided by the project. According to the Hungarian delegation, the system ideally would be very useful for environmental management purposes as well as to policy makers. The close connections between the proposed system and similar systems in the agricultural field were taken up in the discussion. Recalling the high cost of the German project, it was considered advisable to try to combine results from different sources for spatial data.
Documentation: Working Papers 7 and 5
16. A brief account of the system of marine statistics in Croatia was first given. The role of international conventions and organisations in shaping marine statistics was emphasized. It is common, as was noted in the discussion, that marine statistics are compiled by specialized agencies, and that environment statisticians do not necessarily have easy access to the data. Environment statisticians may, however, have a special interest in obtaining these data for the purpose of compiling general environment statistics. If this is the case, the selected indicators should be in line with those applied by expert authorities.
17. The Dutch presentation and demonstration of the aggregation system for water data, the Water-Mondriaan, was much appreciated. The system aims at providing environmental managers, policy makers and the public with a quick picture of the overall status of waters in defined areas. Aggregation is over target variables, of different kinds, whose distance from standards/objectives are presented by means of indices. Fixed, quantifiable standards/ objectives are at the core of the system: the status of water in a given district is described only in relation to them. The index values are calculated in different steps, and if necessary, applying different weighing patterns. The whole system is available in a user-friendly computer format. The software also makes it possible to view the original data behind the aggregated maps.
18. The Mondriaan system could also be used for many other purposes, such as showing environmental pressures. It could also be extended over larger geographical regions. Standards/objectives and the way they are determined were of interest to many participants. It appeared that the Netherlands is one of the pioneers in setting standards. Extensive modelling is used to predict the yield of policy plans. It was noted, however, that the use of standards as a basis for the evaluation can sometimes result in inconsistencies, as the same end result would be achieved either by a change in the target variable or in the standard itself. What and who actually determines the weights raised interest. The quality of the underlying database was considered important for the relevance of the system, and this is taken into account in developing the Water Mondriaan. It was thought to be crucial for the use of the system that aspects of data quality, as well as the whole rationale of the system, are made transparent to the user. To this it was replied that a separate meta-database exists with necessary background information.
Documentation: Working Paper 14
19. Eurostat presented its "Environmental Pressure Index Project", which has two goals: (i) the improvement of the physical database by means of a thorough cost-benefit analysis of indicator generation; and (ii) the description of pressures on the environment in ten policy fields, in terms of pressure indexes, each composed of a number of physical indicators. The weighing coefficients for the aggregation will be obtained from EU-wide panels of experts in each policy field (NGOs, industry, government authorities, etc.). Eleven research institutes will work in the project during the next two years.
20. The area unit for which the pressure index would be calculated gave rise to some questions. Some suggested that one figure for the whole country would not have much information value. It was also felt that the pressure index type of aggregation might not offer a direct indication of the scale and distribution of environmental problems, but could provide a measure of efficiency of related policy actions. It was not clear to everyone whether several different environmental components could simply be added up in calculating the index value, as planned in the Environmental Pressure Index project. The WHO European Centre for Health and Environment (ECEH) proposed that the objectives of European Environmental Health Action Plan (EEHAP) were taken into consideration in setting the field priorities for the pressure index project. They also suggested that a core set of environmental indicators would be developed for all European countries, for measuring the implementation of EEHAP.
Documentation: Working Papers 4, 11 and 12
21. Under this item, Italy and France reported about their on-going work on physical environmental accounting. In both countries this work also relates to the UNECE Task Force on physical accounting. In Italy, the objective is statistical description of the circulation of certain compounds (eg nutrients) through the technosphere and the environment by means of accounts. The key concept here is that of 'chain'. The compilation of input-output matrixes is done by defining a set of 'chains' showing how each individual transformation process affects, in terms of material flows, various sectors included in the matrix. In France, efforts are being made to further develop patrimony accounts, particularly with regard to land use/cover, water and environmental expenditures. Accounts for water already exist, but as regards land use/cover and environmental expenditures, the current emphasis is more on exploring suitable accounting methodologies.
22. The Italian project was thought to benefit from clarification of the 'chains', between the economy and the environment. It was stressed that the same accounting methodology could yield different results depending on the objective chosen: the use of materials (nutrients etc.) in the economy being at one end, and ecological stability at the other. The usability of the results obtained from the proposed systems of physical accounts was of interest to some speakers. With regard to the French patrimony accounting system, some users have proposed simpler accounts.
23. The paper prepared by the WWF was appreciated for its attempt to bring some conceptual clarity into the discussion of environmental accounting. In particular, the distinction made between the 'green' GDP and 'greening' of the GDP, and what was said about each, received acceptance.
Documentation: Working Paper 13
24. The discussion of this item was based on a report regarding the replies received from transition countries to a special questionnaire of their needs for developing environment statistics. The listed issues on which more information from countries with more experience would benefit transition countries were considered important enough to be included in future methodological discussions. They are included, as appropriate, in Annex IV, as are the two proposals by the joint ECE/Eurostat Work Session on Environmental Protection Activities and Facilities.