The United Nation (UN) has created an innovative artificial intelligence (AI) tool to help countries easily measure the significance of nature to their economic prosperity and well-being. The tool was launched last week by the UN and the Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3).

The tool was developed by the Statistics Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) in collaboration with the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and BC3. The tool is hoped to accelerate the implementation of the new ground-breaking standard that acknowledges and calculates the contributions of nature to a nation's progress which was adopted by the UN Statistical Commission last month.

The Ai-enabled tool uses the Artificial Intelligence for Environment and Sustainability (ARIES) platform to support countries to apply the new international standard for natural capital accounting, the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) Ecosystem Accounting.

“The ARIES for SEEA Explorer is a game-changer for governments that want to implement the recently adopted SEEA Ecosystem Accounting standard,” stressed Stefan Schweinfest, Director of the Statistics Division. “This application allows countries to jump-start accounts compilation from global data sources, which they can refine with national data or model parameters.”

The tool will track the extent, condition and services provided by factoring in physical and monetary accounts and indicators of ecosystems such as forests, wetlands, etc. The move of adopting the SEEA Ecosystem Accounting has been lauded as a momentous advancement for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and to move beyond GDP in tracking global progress.

Bert Kroese, Deputy Director for Statistics Netherlands and Chair of the UN Committee of Environmental-Economic Accounting said, “The ARIES for SEEA Explorer will give countries a much-needed tool to make progress with the SDGs and the monitoring framework of the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. Its low barrier to entry will ensure that no country is left behind when it comes to ecosystem accounting.”

Risenga Maluleke, Statistician-General of Statistics South Africa and Chair of the UN Committee of Experts on Big Data and Data Science for Official Statistics said, “The launch of the ARIES for SEEA Explorer on the UN Global Platform is an important step to mainstream the measurement of ecosystems and their contribution to the economy and wellbeing into global, regional and domestic statistics that will feed into policy and decision making. Better measures of nature will contribute to better policies to save our planet.”

Building economic systems that value nature as a central source of human wellbeing, environmental health and economic prosperity in the post-COVID-19 world is essential, according to Susan Gardner, Director of UNEP’s Ecosystems Division. “Having technology that incorporates and integrates the latest data, models and understanding of nature’s contributions through natural capital accounting will facilitate well-informed nature positive decision-making from businesses and governments – driving tangible action on biodiversity loss and climate change and a sustainable future for all,” she said.