Environmental Protection Expenditure Accounts (EPEA)
Expenditure on protection of the environment amounted to €12.7 billion in Austria in the year 2009. Of this amount, 9.0% was financed by the public sector (including NGOs = Non Governmental Organisations), 27.3% by private households, 61.5% by companies and 2.2% by the European Union. As in recent years, in 2009 also the majority of total expenditure was destined for the two core areas of environmental protection expenditure, namely waste management (27.3%) and wastewater management (26.5%). The remaining amount of 46.2% was dispersed among the areas of protection of ambient air and climate (8.4%), protection of biodiversity and landscape (6.1%), protection and remediation of soil, ground- and surface water (10.0%) as well as noise and vibration abatement (6.3%). Research and development, protection against radiation and other environmental protection activities accounted for a total of 15.4% of environmental expenditure.
Legislative measures of recent years have made a significant impact on the extent and distribution of environmental protection expenditure.
Thus, in the early 1990s, there was stronger emphasis
on air pollution control (Emission Control Act, Ozone Act), while from
the mid
Environmental protection expenditure by the public and private sector constitutes a key aspect of ecological activities of a national economy; the amount of the national expenditure on this behalf indicates the economic significance of environmental protection.
In accordance with guidelines issued by the Statistical Office of the European Communities (EUROSTAT), an EU harmonised system for collecting environment-related economic data (Système Européen de Rassemblement de l’Information Economique sur l’Environnement (SERIEE)) has been drawn up to enable economic information about the environment within a common, consistent framework.
In concrete terms, the system is
- depicting the monetary flows associated with environmental protection;
- describing the repercussions of environmental protection on the European economy;
- calculating indicators as well as
- collecting and presenting economic information about the environment.
One component of the SERIEE system is the environmental protection expenditure account (EPEA); within that Statistics Austria has drawn up the environmental protection expenditure for the public sector, the private production sector and the private households in accordance with this system since 1995.
The private production sector and its economic data accounts for a not insignificant share of environmental expenditure. Due to a lack of data of sufficient depth for this area, surveys of environmental protection expenditure in industries and construction (PDF, 340 KB, available in German only) are carried out on a voluntary basis every three years, at last for the year under review 2009.
| Financing of domestic environmental protection expenditure 2009 in million |  |  |  |
|---|---|---|---|
| Financing of domestic environmental protection expenditure 2008 in million | | | |
| Financing of domestic environmental protection expenditure 2007 in million | | | |
| Financing of domestic environmental protection expenditure 2006 in million | | | |
| Financing of domestic environmental protection expenditure 2005 in million | | | |
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