GREEN ACCOUNTS may be produced by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in order to show annual usage of natural resources, Public Finance reports.
The idea stems from a Defra white paper entitled The natural choice: securing the value of nature, which proposes the accounts would be used to show green growth alongside economic growth, saying the two are “mutually compatible”.
Environment secretary Caroline Spelman said: “We need to recognise that, if we withdraw something from Mother Nature’s bank, we’ve got to put something back in to ensure that the environment has a healthy balance and a secure future.”
CIPFA assistant director for policy Tom Lewis welcomed the move. He said: “It represents an important development in sustainability reporting at above-organisational level.”