Fell a forest, sell the timber, and GDP goes up. The forest that is no longer there appears nowhere in the accounts.
That is not an oversight; it is what GDP was built to measure. National accounts are an income statement. They record what was produced and earned in a year. They have never carried a balance sheet for nature — a record of how much forest, water, soil and mineral a country holds, and how much of it the year consumed.
In March 2025 that changed, and the document MoSPI released on 7 October 2026 is the consequence.
What was released
The National Statistics Office, under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, published the "Strategy for Environmental Economic Accounts in India 2026–2030".
It is the successor to the "Strategy for Environmental-Economic Accounts in India 2022–2026", and it sets out the subjects on which India will build accounts over the next five years:
| New or expanded subjects, 2026-30 | forest, minerals, soil resources, land, water, carbon stock, environment-related activities, biodiversity, environment statistics |
| Basis of selection | the report "Green National Accounts in India: A Framework" and the SEEA Central Framework |
| Purpose | address data gaps, expand account coverage, identify priority areas and milestones, monitor progress |
| Intended users | MoSPI itself, and States and Union Territories wishing to begin or strengthen environmental accounting |
MoSPI describes it as a self-evolving guidance tool rather than a fixed plan, and the discussion paper is on the Ministry's website.
The sentence that makes this more than housekeeping
Buried in the release is this: "The developments under System of National Accounts 2025, particularly the recognition of natural resource accounting within the national accounting framework, strengthen the importance of environmental accounting."
That deserves unpacking, because it is the single most consequential fact here.
The System of National Accounts is the international standard that defines GDP itself — the rulebook every statistical office follows so that one country's output figure means the same as another's. In March 2025 the UN Statistical Commission endorsed the 2025 SNA, succeeding the 2008 edition.
One of its most significant changes concerns depletion. Under the old treatment, using up a natural resource was recorded as an "other change in the volume of assets" — a footnote in the asset accounts that never touched the production measures. Under the 2025 SNA, the depletion of a non-produced natural resource is a cost of production for the entity extracting it. And it follows that:
Net Domestic Product = GDP − depreciation of fixed capital − depletion of natural resources
The 2025 SNA adopts the depletion definition that SEEA-CF had already standardised. Which means environmental accounting has stopped being a parallel exercise run by specialists and has entered the arithmetic of a core national aggregate. A statistical office that wants to publish NDP correctly now has to measure how much of its mineral, timber and water stock the year consumed.
That is why a strategy document exists now, and why it is organised around stocks.
Read the two lists together
Compare what the 2022-26 strategy prioritised with what the new one covers.
2022-26 priorities: Material Flow Accounts, Ocean Accounts, Energy Accounts, and Thematic Accounts for Biodiversity and Urban Areas.
2026-30 subjects: forest, minerals, soil resources, land, water, carbon stock, environment-related activities, biodiversity, environment statistics.
Two things stand out. Minerals and carbon stock are new entrants, and Material Flow Accounts do not reappear by name. The centre of gravity has moved from flows — what passes through the economy in a year — toward stocks: how much of an asset exists and how it changed.
That is precisely what the 2025 SNA requires, because depletion is by definition a reduction in a stock. You cannot compute depletion of a mineral deposit without an opening balance, extraction, discoveries and a closing balance. The reordering of the subject list is the strategy responding to the standard.
Work already undertaken since 2018 spans a wider spread than either list: forests, biodiversity, wetlands, ocean accounts, soil, water quality, croplands, energy, residuals, urban ecosystems and pollination services.
How India got here
The lineage is worth knowing, because the examinable facts sit in it.
2011. MoSPI constituted an Expert Group chaired by Prof. Sir Partha Dasgupta to develop a framework for green national accounts and a roadmap to implement it.
2013. The group reported, as "Green National Accounts in India: A Framework". Its recommendation was a phased compilation following SEEA — asset accounts first, then physical flows, then monetary flows. That sequencing is not a bureaucratic convenience; it is an intellectual judgement about what can be measured reliably, and it has governed everything since.
2017. India joined the Natural Capital Accounting and Valuation of Ecosystem Services (NCAVES) project — funded by the European Union through its Partnership Instrument, jointly implemented by the UN Statistics Division and UN Environment in collaboration with the Convention on Biological Diversity. India was one of five participating countries, with Brazil, China, Mexico and South Africa. Within India it was run by MoSPI with the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and the National Remote Sensing Centre.
2018. MoSPI began publishing environmental accounts annually in EnviStats India. The first release contained asset accounts in physical terms for four resources — forest, land, minerals and water — exactly as Dasgupta's sequencing prescribed.
The presence of the National Remote Sensing Centre answers the obvious question of how any of this is measured. An ecosystem extent account is built from land-cover classification, which is a satellite product. You cannot survey a country's forest boundary annually by foot; you can classify it from imagery.
What SEEA actually is, and its two halves
SEEA — the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting — is the international statistical standard for environmental accounts, endorsed by the UN Statistical Commission. It does for environmental data what the SNA does for economic data: fixes definitions, boundaries and classifications so that numbers are comparable across countries and across years.
It has two parts, and the distinction matters:
- SEEA Central Framework (SEEA-CF) — physical and monetary accounts for environmental assets and flows: water, energy, emissions and residuals, land, minerals, timber. This is the firmer ground, and it is what the new strategy cites as its basis.
- SEEA Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA-EA) — accounts for ecosystem extent, condition and services, treating an ecosystem as an asset that delivers a flow of benefits. Newer, and where valuation becomes genuinely contested.
The limit worth stating plainly
There is a reason India's accounts began in physical terms and a reason no country publishes a "green GDP" as its headline number.
Physical accounting is measurement. Hectares of forest, cubic metres of water in a basin, tonnes of a mineral in a proven deposit — these are hard to collect but conceptually clean, and two statisticians will arrive at a similar figure.
Monetary valuation is a model. To put a rupee figure on the storm protection a mangrove provides, or the pollination a wild bee population performs, you must choose a valuation technique, a shadow price and a discount rate. Each choice is defensible and each changes the answer, sometimes by multiples. The number that comes out is not wrong, but it is not a measurement either — it is the output of assumptions that reasonable economists dispute.
This is why "green GDP" has never become an official headline anywhere, and why MoSPI's framing is appropriately modest. The strategy's real value will be in whether it delivers a publication calendar, closes the data gaps it identifies, and gets States compiling physical asset accounts — not in whether it eventually produces a single green number. On the evidence of how the pollination-services and urban-ecosystem work has been presented, the Ministry understands this.
The policy use, when the accounts exist, is concrete rather than rhetorical. A State that knows its groundwater stock, its rate of extraction and its recharge can see depletion as a cost rather than as free input — which is the same accounting logic that underlies carbon pricing and the net-zero reporting architecture. It is also what allows conservation to be argued in the language finance ministries use, as the valuation of tiger landscapes as natural capital attempted from the other direction. And like every MoSPI product, it will be judged on sampling, definitions and release discipline, in the way the first National Household Travel Survey now is.
🔑 Revision block
- Release, 7 October 2026: the NSO, MoSPI, published the "Strategy for Environmental Economic Accounts in India 2026–2030" — successor to the 2022–2026 strategy.
- 2026-30 subjects: forest, minerals, soil resources, land, water, carbon stock, environment-related activities, biodiversity, environment statistics. Selected on the basis of "Green National Accounts in India: A Framework" and the SEEA Central Framework.
- 2022-26 priorities, for contrast: Material Flow Accounts, Ocean Accounts, Energy Accounts, and Thematic Accounts for Biodiversity and Urban Areas. The shift is from flows to stocks.
- Work since 2018 spans: forests, biodiversity, wetlands, ocean accounts, soil, water quality, croplands, energy, residuals, urban ecosystems and pollination services.
- SEEA: System of Environmental-Economic Accounting, the statistical standard endorsed by the UN Statistical Commission. Two parts — SEEA-CF (physical and monetary accounts for environmental assets and flows) and SEEA-EA (ecosystem extent, condition and services).
- The 2025 SNA — the key fact. Endorsed by the UN Statistical Commission in March 2025, succeeding the 2008 SNA. Depletion of a non-produced natural resource is now a cost of production, not an "other change in the volume of assets". Therefore NDP = GDP − depreciation − depletion of natural resources. The 2025 SNA adopts SEEA-CF's depletion definition.
- Why that matters: environmental accounting moves from a satellite exercise into the arithmetic of a core national aggregate, so measuring stock change becomes obligatory rather than optional.
- Dasgupta Expert Group: constituted by MoSPI in 2011 under Prof. Sir Partha Dasgupta; reported in 2013 as "Green National Accounts in India: A Framework"; recommended phased SEEA compilation — asset accounts → physical flows → monetary flows.
- NCAVES: joined 2017. Funded by the European Union (Partnership Instrument), implemented by the UN Statistics Division and UN Environment with the Convention on Biological Diversity. India one of 5 countries, with Brazil, China, Mexico and South Africa. Run by MoSPI with MoEFCC and the National Remote Sensing Centre.
- EnviStats India: MoSPI's annual environmental-accounts publication since 2018. First release — asset accounts in physical terms for forest, land, minerals and water.
- Why NRSC is involved: ecosystem extent accounts are built from satellite land-cover classification.
- Physical vs monetary: physical accounting is measurement; monetary valuation requires a valuation technique, a shadow price and a discount rate, each contested — which is why no country publishes "green GDP" as a headline number.
- Federal dimension: the strategy is intended as a guiding framework for States and UTs that wish to begin or strengthen environmental accounting.
🎯 Practice MCQs
Q1. The System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) is a statistical standard endorsed by the: (a) UN Statistical Commission (b) UN Environment Programme alone (c) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (d) Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
→ (a) SEEA is a UN Statistical Commission standard, which is what makes its accounts internationally comparable — the same status the SNA has for economic accounts.
Q2. Under the 2025 System of National Accounts, depletion of a non-produced natural resource is treated as: (a) An other change in the volume of assets (b) A transfer from the environment to households (c) A cost of production for the extractor (d) A capital gain
→ (c) This is the central change. Treating depletion as a cost of production is what pulls it into the production measures rather than leaving it in a footnote to the asset accounts.
Q3. Following the 2025 SNA, Net Domestic Product is defined as GDP less: (a) Indirect taxes and subsidies (b) Depreciation of fixed capital and depletion of natural resources (c) Net factor income from abroad (d) Depreciation of fixed capital only
→ (b) Both deductions. NDP less depreciation alone was the old definition; subtracting net factor income from abroad gives Net National Product, a different aggregate.
Q4. The Expert Group that produced "Green National Accounts in India: A Framework" was chaired by: (a) Raghuram Rajan (b) Arvind Panagariya (c) Bibek Debroy (d) Prof. Sir Partha Dasgupta
→ (d) Constituted by MoSPI in 2011, it reported in 2013 and recommended phased SEEA compilation — asset accounts first, then physical flows, then monetary flows.
Q5. India's first environmental economic accounts, released in 2018, consisted of asset accounts in physical terms for: (a) Forest, land, minerals and water (b) Air quality, water quality, soil and noise (c) Carbon stock, biodiversity, wetlands and oceans (d) Energy, emissions, residuals and material flows
→ (a) Four resources, in physical terms, exactly as the Dasgupta sequencing prescribed. Carbon stock and biodiversity come later in the programme.
Q6. India participated in the NCAVES project along with: (a) The United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany (b) Brazil, China, Mexico and South Africa (c) Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bhutan (d) Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines
→ (b) Five countries in all, in a project funded by the European Union and implemented by the UN Statistics Division and UN Environment with the Convention on Biological Diversity.
Q7. The National Remote Sensing Centre is a partner in India's environmental accounting work principally because: (a) It maintains the national register of mineral deposits (b) It operates the groundwater monitoring network (c) Ecosystem extent accounts are built from satellite land-cover classification (d) It certifies the accuracy of national income estimates
→ (c) A country's ecosystem boundaries cannot be surveyed on foot each year; they are classified from imagery, which is why a remote-sensing agency sits inside a statistical programme.
Q8. Which of the following pairs is correctly matched? (a) SEEA-CF — ecosystem extent, condition and services (b) SEEA-EA — physical and monetary accounts for water, energy and minerals (c) SNA 2008 — depletion treated as a cost of production (d) SEEA-CF — physical and monetary accounts for environmental assets and flows
→ (d) The Central Framework covers assets and flows; Ecosystem Accounting covers extent, condition and services. Depletion became a cost of production only in the 2025 SNA.
Q9. The principal reason no country publishes a "green GDP" as its headline aggregate is that: (a) The UN Statistical Commission prohibits it (b) Monetary valuation of ecosystem services depends on contested valuation techniques, shadow prices and discount rates (c) Physical data on natural assets does not exist anywhere (d) GDP is a legally defined term that cannot be modified
→ (b) Physical accounting is measurement; monetary valuation is a model whose assumptions change the answer, sometimes by multiples — which is why India began in physical terms.
Q10. The shift in subject emphasis between the 2022-26 and 2026-30 strategies — with minerals and carbon stock added — is best explained as a response to: (a) The requirement to measure stock change, since depletion is by definition a reduction in a stock (b) A reduction in MoSPI's survey budget (c) The winding up of the NCAVES project (d) A decision to discontinue ecosystem accounting
→ (a) Computing depletion needs an opening balance, extraction, discoveries and a closing balance. The reordered subject list is the strategy adapting to the 2025 SNA.
📋 How this gets asked (PYQ pattern)
Environmental accounting is examined in four recognisable ways, and the first is the one most candidates have never seen.
The first is the aggregate definitions. GDP, NDP, GNP, NNP — and now the 2025 SNA's redefinition of NDP to net off depletion as well as depreciation. Any statement that NDP is simply GDP less depreciation is, after March 2025, incomplete; and that is exactly the kind of update examiners like because it separates current reading from stale notes.
The second is standard-to-body mapping. SEEA and the SNA are both UN Statistical Commission standards; EnviStats India is MoSPI's publication; NCAVES was an EU-funded, UNSD and UN Environment project with the CBD. Four names, four parents.
The third is the committee. The Dasgupta Expert Group of 2011, reporting in 2013, and its phased recommendation — assets, then physical flows, then monetary flows. Committee-to-subject questions are standard in the economy paper, and this one is unusually easy to confuse with the Dasgupta Review on biodiversity written later for the UK.
The fourth, and the one worth most in a written answer, is the physical-versus-monetary argument. Explaining why India's accounts began in physical terms, and why monetary valuation of ecosystem services remains contested, demonstrates that you understand what an account can and cannot do. Asserting that India is about to publish a green GDP figure does the opposite.
Preparing for CDS/OTA? When a statistical standard changes, ask which headline number the change enters. A revision that alters the definition of NDP is worth more marks than a dozen scheme names, because every downstream figure inherits it. Build the base with our CDS/OTA study material and the economy section, follow the daily CDS current affairs, and prepare with our faculty in the upcoming Cavalier courses in Delhi.
✍️ Written by Aditya Tiwari — Faculty, Economy & Polity, at The Cavalier. Reviewed by the Cavalier Faculty Desk.