The System for integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting is a satellite system of the SNA that comprises 4 categories of accounts.
The first considers purely physical data relating to flows of materials and energy and marshals them as far as possible according to the accounting structure of the SNA. The accounts in this category also show how flow data in physical and monetary terms can be combined to produce so-called “hybrid” flow accounts. Emissions accounts for greenhouse gases are an example of the type included in this category.
The second category of accounts takes those elements of the existing SNA which are relevant to the good management of the environment and shows how the environment-related transactions can be made more explicit. An account of expenditures made by businesses, governments and households to protect the environment is an example of the accounts included in this category. The third category of accounts in the SEEA comprises accounts for environmental assets measured in physical and monetary terms. Timber stock accounts showing opening and closing timber balances and the related changes over the course of an accounting period are an example.The final category of SEEA accounts considers how the existing SNA might be adjusted to account for the impact of the economy on the environment. Three sorts of adjustments are considered; those relating to depletion, those concerning so-called defensive expenditures and those relating to degradation.