A New Environmental Accounting Framework Using Externality Data and Input-Output Tools for Policy Analysis

EXIOPOL sets up a detailed economy-environment model to estimate environmental impacts and external costs of different economic sectors and of the consumption of natural resources (energy, materials, land) for countries in the European Union.

EXIOPOL is a European Integrated Project (IP) coordinated by the Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM) in collaboration with The Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO). EXIOPOL involves 37 partners both from within and outside Europe. Partners have been selected for having a sound experience in the two main research fields of this IP: the valuation of the external costs of key environmental impacts; and environmentally extended input-output analysis.

The EXIOPOL IP has 3 principal objectives:

1) To synthesize and develop comprehensive estimates of the external costs for Europe of a broad set of economic activities;

2) To set up a detailed environmentally extended Input-Output database, with links to other socio-economic models, in which as many of these estimates as possible are included. This will allow for the estimation of environmental impacts and external costs of different economic sector activities, final consumption activities and resource consumption for countries in the EU;

3) To apply the results of the external cost estimates and EE I-O analysis for the analysis of policy questions of importance, as well as to evaluate the impact of past research on external costs on policy-making in the EU.

In the EXIOPOL project, SERI is working in the area of environmental extensions of the detailed input-output model. These extensions cover the four main categories of material flows, energy use, land use and air emissions. SERI is leading the workpackage on environmental extensions in countries and world regions outside Europe, which will be included in the model to cover effects of trade relations between Europe and the rest of the world. SERI will also contribute to the preparation of environmental data for the EU-25 countries. Main partner in these workpackages is the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment, Energy in Germany.