PU-17/0090 - Developing estimates for the valuation of pollution removal in ecosystem accounts.

The value of Natural Capital is not currently measured or included in National Accounts and in 2011, the government committed to working with the ONS to measure its value (see Natural Environment White Paper, June 2011). Since then, the ONS has worked in partnership with DEFRA to develop new innovative methods to measure this strand of economic statistics, aiming for Natural Capital estimates to be included in the UK Environmental Accounts by 2020.

The UK is one of the world leaders in developing Natural Capital accounts and we have a high profile in the international community of environmental economics and statistics. We have strong support from the UK government and recently, the environment secretary publically stressed the importance of valuing nature in the same way as we value infrastructure.

Our highest profile publication, initial monetary estimates of UK Natural Capital, are currently partial estimates and ONS, DEFRA and the Natural Capital Committee have identified the need to broaden the coverage of these estimates and show progress in valuing this top-down measure. Progress and revisions are due to be published in November 2016.

A key gap identified is the ecosystem service of filtration and sequestration of air pollutants through vegetation, in essence air quality. So far, experimental non-monetary and monetary estimates have been produced for the pollutants, particulate matter 10 and sulphur dioxide, and the annual value of the service vegetation provides in removing these two pollutants is estimated at £4.5billion. This work can be found in our latest Environmental Accounts release. This work will also be included in our revised UK aggregate monetary accounts in November.

However, there are a number of other harmful pollutants which also need to be accounted for to create a complete account of pollution removal in the UK. Crucially, PM2.5 and nitrogen oxides are currently excluded, but are known to have high emission rates and damage costs. This work would look to extend the results for all other relevant pollutants covered in the ONS atmospheric emissions accounts.

Additionally, the primary data sources, Corine and the Land Cover Map, which were used to map land cover change in previous estimates, are both problematic and do not provide reliable, timely results. New forms of satellite data could be a good alternative and will also help to provide spatially disaggregated results. This will need to be explored.

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