Announcement of an environmental indicators/environmental accounting conference

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Announcement of an environmental indicators/environmental accounting conference at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, in late 1996:

1996 Australian Academy of Science Fenner Conference on the Environment:

"TRACKING PROGRESS LINKING ENVIRONMENT AND ECONOMY THROUGH INDICATORS AND ACCOUNTING SYSTEMS"

Towards sustainability:

Where are we now?
What are our targets?
How to judge progess?

When: September 30 early October 3 1996

Where: University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia.

Whilst the notion of sustainability has been embraced world-wide we seem to have made little progress towards its achievement. To move towards sustainability, targets must be set and performance measured in a manner which integrates environmental and economic parameters.

There is much activity in Australia and overseas at present in State of the Environment reporting, in developing accounting systems which give due recognition to the value of the environment, and in developing indicators and indices for both these purposes.

Discussion on these issues has largely taken place amongst government agency staff and academics and within the private sector, but there has not been wider public debate involving the full range of interested and affected parties.

The purpose of this conference is to bring together those with expertise in measuring change through both bio-physical and economic parameters, with the wide range of stakeholders from government, the private sector (from the resource industries to banking and finance), NGOs , the scientific, social science and technology professions, and other interested members of the community.

The emphasis will be on tools and methods for Measuring Progress bearing in mind the underlying objectives of developing indicators and accounting systems that inform the community about progress toward achieving sustainability targets and assist environmental policy development and sound allocation of environmental management resources. The OECD 'pressure-state-response' model for State of the Environment reporting provides a useful framework for exploring linkages. The conference discussions will encompass environmental indicators and accounting techniques at national, state, regional and local levels as well as at the level of individual companies/organisations and industry sectors.

One whole day will be devoted to macro (national / regional) reporting and accounting and another day to micro (corporate) reproting and accounting.

For further information contact:

	Ronnie Harding, Director
	Institute of Environmental Studies
	University of New South Wales
	Sydney NSW 2052
	Australia
	Phone: 61 2 385 4973
	Fax: 61 2 663 1015

	Email: R.Harding@unsw.edu.au

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- David Eckstein                          -
- Institute of Environmental Studies      -
- University of New South Wales           -
- SYDNEY                                  -
- NSW 2052                                -
- AUSTRALIA                               -
-                                         -
- Fax:     + 61 2 663 1015                -
- Phone:   + 61 2 385 5707                -
- Email:  D.Eckstein@unsw.edu.au          -
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