Continuing Professional Education
Ecosystem Services Approach for Decision-Making
This, global benchmark, certificate course will help decision makers recognise the link between ecosystem services and development goals, by demonstrating how to incorporate an Ecosystem Services Approach into existing decision-making processes.
The student will learn how an Ecosystem Services Approach expands the focus beyond how development affects ecosystems, to include how development depends on ecosystems. In addition to focusing on how to protect ecosystems from development, we can also consider how to invest in managing ecosystems for development.
Central Framework for Ecosystem Accounting
The course ’Central Framework for Ecosystem Accounting’ will acquaint the student with the essentials of the SEEA Central Framework, which will help him/her/other to understand the interactions between the economy and the environment, and enables the student to describe stocks and changes in stocks of environmental assets.
The student will learn how to use a wide range of information through its structure, enables source data to be compared and contrasted, and allows for the development of aggregates, indicators and trends across a broad spectrum of environmental and economic issues. Particular examples include the assessment of trends in the use and availability of natural resources and the extent of emissions and discharges to the environment resulting from economic activity.
System of National Accounts for Ecosystem Accounting
The supplementary, SNA for Ecosystem Accounting, course will acquaint the student with the internationally agreed set of recommendations on how to compile measures of economic activity in accordance with strict accounting conventions based on economic principles.
The accounting framework of the SNA presents in a condensed way a great mass of detailed information, organised according to economic principles and perceptions, about the working of an economy. They provide a comprehensive and detailed record of the complex economic activities taking place within an economy and of the interaction between the different economic agents, and groups of agents, that takes place on markets or elsewhere. The framework of the System of National Accounts provides accounts that are: comprehensive, consistent, integrated.
Biomodelling for Ecosystem Accounting
This, global benchmark, supplementary course will acquaint the student with the essentials of biophysical modelling, which will allow him/her/other to compile ecosystem accounts where statistical or field information is not readily available.
While most biophysical models are not developed specifically for accounting purposes, many models either produce results that can be used directly in SEEA EA or produce results that can be modified for use in SEEA EA. In this course the student will learn identifying tools and modelling platforms that produce results aligned with SEEA EA, as well as associated best practices that will facilitate the compilation of ecosystem accounts.
