The PEENRA was established by virtue of the Executive Order No. 406. The Philippine System of National Accounts (PSNA) as the basis for the formulation of medium- and long-term development plans, does not yet capture the role of the environment as a source of natural capital and as sink for the waste generated by production and other human activities. There is a need to establish a PEENRA System as a satellite account to the PSNA to generate macroeconomic indicators that will reflect the relationships and interactions between the natural environment and the economy.

Environmental accounts provide key information on a broad spectrum of environmental and economic issues such as the sustainable use of natural resources, particularly non-renewable resources, the extent of emission and discharges to the environment resulting from economic activities, and the amount of economic activity undertaken for environmental purposes. Furthermore, compilation of environmental accounts lead to the generation of environmentally-adjusted measures of economic growth and wealth by taking into account resource depletion, environmental degradation, and protective and restorative environmental initiatives in the traditional GDP and wealth measures. Environmental accounts will also provide the essential information for monitoring/ measuring climate change and its impact, adaptation and mitigation to climate change and disaster risk management, sustainable development and the environment in general.