The Green Sudoku: integrative accounting for linkages between the environment and economy

In recent decades, an internationally accepted framework for environmental-economic statistics has emerged - the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA), which links to the world's standard national economic accounting framework- the System of National Accounts (SNA), in use for over 70 years. SEEA provides a rules-based accounting system to track stocks and flows of natural resources, including ecosystems and ecosystem services, using physical and monetary units. The importance of linking SEEA to the SNA is increasingly apparent given the diverse connections and dependencies between the environment and economy at local through global scales. Using the analogy of Sudoku - a globally popular, numeric grid-based logic puzzle - we illustrate how the combined presentation and analysis of SEEA and SNA frames a complete accounting system that neither system alone can adequately represent. Through case studies of timber provisioning and nutrient regulation in freshwater, we illustrate the Sudoku analogy to demonstrate the value of jointly presenting and evaluating SEEA and SNA results. The Sudoku analogy can more clearly illustrate to scientists and decision makers outside the accounting community how and why linkages between environmental and economic accounting matter. The linked SNA-SEEA accounting system is a critical information source needed to address many pressing environmental-economic challenges facing contemporary society.