The Swiss Federal Office for the Environment commissioned this study to develop a set of recommendations for environmental reporting to ensure a "True and Fair View" on the environmental impacts of consumption and production.

Background

Decision makers and citizens alike receive a multitude of information regarding the state of the environment and the environmental impact of consumption and production, which does not result in a cohesive picture. Rather, a large amount of information is produced on isolated environmental improvements and degradations. The question of whether we move towards sustainability remains unanswered.

Objectives

The project “True and Fair View” developed recommendations for the documentation of the environmental impacts of consumption and production. The objective was to ensure a well-funded and balanced evidence base for environmental and resource-oriented decision making. Moreover, the project served to identify fields where action is necessary.

Methodology

At first, the study developed a complete set of quality requirements and recommendations for environmental-economic reporting, drawing upon, amongst others, standards of accounting used in the finance sector. This way, environmental-economic reporting is meant to be improved, harmonised and inter-institutional and international comparability ensured. These quality recommendations are intended to be applied beyond Switzerland in an international context.
In a subsequent step, the previously developed quality recommendations were applied to existing methodologies for environmental reporting.

Ecologic Institute's role

The Ecologic Institute tested a number of methods for environmental-economic reporting based upon the previously developed criteria. Moreover, the Ecologic Institute supported the project with information on developments at EU and Member State level.

The resulting report Environmental Impacts of Swiss Consumption and Production [pdf, 1.8 MB, English] is available for download.