Advanced economies have reduced their consumption of raw materials and improved waste management, but more should be done to design and produce goods in a way that uses fewer natural resources and produces less waste, according to a new OECD report.

The Paris Agreement on climate change signals the end of business as usual for energy industries. For the first time in history more than 150 developed and developing countries have promised to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But how binding are these agreements? And do they provide impetus for local action in Africa?

Join the Green Growth Knowledge Platform (GGKP) for a webinar on 25 May 2016, 9:00-10:40am (CST, Costa Rica time) to explore issues affecting the LAC region, including: inclusive green growth, implementation of clean, efficient, resilient and socially inclusive innovations. Please note that the webinar will be held in Spanish.

Creeping protectionism is alive and well. Last year’s monitoring report on trade for the G20 reminded us that of the nearly 1,500 trade-restrictive measures imposed by G20 countries since 2008, fewer than 400 have been removed. The stock of these barriers continues to grow, despite a pledge by the G20 to reduce protectionism.

The Paris Agreement is a landmark in collective efforts on climate change and is the result of many years’ hard work. It must now be implemented.

With the Sustainable Development Goals, the world has set itself ambitious targets for the next 15 years. But ambition will also be essential if we are to collect and process the data needed for monitoring the goals. Thanks to more than half a century of experience, the OECD is well-placed to support this global project.

Peru is a multicultural, megadiverse country, with abundant ecosystem and natural resources, and an ancient tradition in the sustainable management of its resources. Growing pressures from extractive industries, unplanned urbanisation and deforestation are threatening its natural heritage and the population's well-being.

Further structural reforms are needed to help the business sector boost productivity growth and overcome the key challenges of sluggish investment in advanced economies and excess capacity in emerging economies, according to a new OECD report.

France has improved its environmental performance over the last decade, lowering greenhouse gas emissions, reducing some air pollutants and cutting its use of fresh water. Further effort will be needed, however, to reduce pollution by nitrates and pesticides and meet ambitious renewable energy targets, according to a new OECD report.

Register for the Green Growth Knowledge Platform (GGKP) Webinar on Sustainable Cities and Structural Transformation through a presentation of this year's African Economic Outlook (AEO). The webinar will take place on 20 July 2016, 2:00-3:30pm (Geneva time).

The OECD has welcomed the release by China and the US of peer reviews of their fossil fuel subsidies.

This event, with involvement from the OECD, on 6-7 September 2016, is of major strategic nature during the Slovak Presidency of the European Council. Its ambition is to improve understanding of the green economy concept, identify conclusions and pathways for transition as well as to involve and mobilise various actors and stakeholders in the discussions of possible future actions.

The Fourth Green Growth Knowledge Platform (GGKP) Annual Conference will take place on the theme of “Transforming Development through Inclusive Green Growth” during 6-7 September 2016 at the International Convention Center on Jeju Island, Republic of Korea.

OECD countries must step up their efforts to improve the quality and equity of their education systems as part of their commitments to meet the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) for education by 2030, according to a new OECD report.

Current carbon prices are falling short of the levels needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions driving climate change, but even moderate price increases could have a significant impact, according to new OECD research.

Read the newest OECD's Insights blog based on the latest report from the New Approaches to Economic Challenges (NAEC) "Debate the Issues: New Approaches to Economic Challenges".

The World Green Economy Summit (WGES) is an initiative by the Dubai Electricity & Water Authority. As an institutional partner, the OECD's Matthew Griffiths will participate under the session "Clean Water to the World", in order to discuss how cross sector partnerships can help conserve and manage water in a responsible way, while using the technologies and models available to tackle regional and global water scarcity.

On the latest OECD Insights blog post, Mr. Kurt van Dender, Head of the Tax and Environment Unit at the OECD’s Centre for Tax Policy and Administration explains the necessary requirements to deeply cut greenhouse gas emissions in order to implement the COP21 Paris Agreement.

Join the GGKP for a webinar on 1 November from 3:00pm - 4:30pm (Geneva time) to learn more about the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI)'s Green Growth Potential Assessment (GGPA) tool which helps countries find ways to turn risks into green growth opportunities, and the ways in which it has been applied to unlock green growth potential in Colombia and Peru.

There are now 45 Adherents to the 2009 OECD Declaration on Green Growth. Georgia has joined Costa Rica, Colombia, Croatia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Morocco, Peru, Tunisia, as well as OECD members in having adhered to the Declaration.

Despite a challenging global environment, the growth prospects of Emerging Asia (Southeast Asia, China and India) remain robust over the medium term, according to the latest edition of the OECD Development Centre’s Economic Outlook for Southeast Asia, China and India.

Read our latest December edition and all previous issues of the newsletter. The December issue draws your attention to the OECD work on Mainstreaming Biodiversity, highlights recent Green Growth news such as the launch of GGKP’s BIG-E Database and Georgia’s adherence to the OECD Green Growth Declaration. It also highlights the OECD’s most recent publications.

The Fifth GGKP Annual Conference will be hosted by the World Bank on the topic of sustainable infrastructure, to stimulate research on these issues and foster interdisciplinary dialogue where relevant.The scientific committee therefore calls for contributions on any aspect of the infrastructure agenda, particularly for developing countries, with a focus on sustainability. Deadline for preliminary versions by 15 June 2017.

To leverage the impact of relatively limited public resources, over a dozen national and sub-national governments have created public green investment banks (GIBs) and GIB-like entities.

Estonia needs to move faster to reduce its dependence on oil shale so it can advance towards a greener economy and reduce air pollution and waste generation, according to a new OECD report.

Korea has improved access to environmental services and become a world leader in climate change mitigation technology.

This report uses household level data covering 20 OECD countries to analyse energy affordability at current energy prices and explores how these indicators change in response to a simulated energy tax reform. The report finds that higher energy prices, needed to cut harmful carbon emissions and air pollution, can also help achieve social policy objectives.

More than any other leader in modern history, Nelson Mandela understood that a society must bridge divides and work together to thrive. He also firmly believed that we must strive to leave our children with a safer, more peaceful and more prosperous world than the one we inherited. He said that “there can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children”.

Integrating measures to tackle climate change into regular economic policy will have a positive impact on economic growth over the medium and long term, according to a new OECD report prepared in the context of the German Presidency of the G20.

Read what OECD bloggers have to say about topics as varied as air pollution, biodiversity, climate, environmental policies, green growth, investment, waste and water. Join the discussion on our latest blog: Climate - Towards a just transition, with no stranded workers and no stranded communities.

Many countries have become more efficient in using natural resources and the services provided by the environment, generating more economic output per unit of carbon emitted and of energy or raw materials consumed. Yet progress is too slow, and if emissions embodied in international trade are included, advances in environmental productivity are more modest, a new OECD report shows.

In 2012, the Joint Meeting agreed on the status of deleted and former versions of Test Guidelines with regards to the Mutual Acceptance of Data (MAD). An 18-month transitional period between the Council Decision and the effective date of deletion was agreed, after which no new test using the deleted or the former version of a Test Guideline can be initiated.

This newsletter provides up-to-date information on activities related to biotechnology at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). It is mainly intended for delegates to OECD meetings who are already familiar with certain aspects of OECD‟s work. We hope that it is also informative for the wider biotech community.

The conference will cover developments and the state-of-the art of environmental microbiology, as it is applied for biotechnological purposes, and the role of genetic engineering of micro-organisms intended for use in the environment, now and in the near future.

The WSSD Global Partnership for Capacity Building to Implement the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS) was created in 2002 by UNITAR, ILO and OECD. This document presents achievements, lessons learned and future directions.

This Guidance Document describes how applicants could demonstrate that a proposed new pool and spa disinfectant would satisfy the regulator’s efficacy criteria. While meeting the performance characteristics can be expected to satisfy the regulator’s efficacy requirements, the regulator may choose to consider alternative scientific information and argument aimed at satisfying the efficacy criteria.

This communication outlines the achievements made so far by OECD in addressing the human health and environmental safety implications of manufactured nanomaterials

The IOMC Toolbox is an internet-based tool that enables countries to identify the most relevant and efficient tools to address specific national problems in chemicals management. Developed by the IOMC, this proof-of-concept focuses on a national management scheme for pesticides, an occupational health and safety system as well as a chemical accidents prevention, preparedness and response system for major hazards.

This document provides detailed guidance for both new chemical notifiers and jurisdictions who wish to participate in a “parallel process” which enables a company to declare to all affected countries at the time of first notification that it wants them to cooperate and share information. The hazard assessment is developed by the ‘lead’ jurisdiction and then utilized by other participating jurisdictions.

The new Test Guidelines are: TG 457 and TG 460. The updated Test Guidelines are TG 109, TG 114, TG 229, TG 211, TG 305, TG 455, and TG 405. The corrected Test Guideline is TG 443

Governments and the chemical industry spend millions of dollars every year testing the safety of chemicals that people use in their everyday lives. Computer modelling, through the OECD-designed QSAR Toolbox software, now replaces many of the tests traditionally done in the laboratory. This allows regulators and industry to save money and use fewer animals to predict the hazardous properties of chemicals.

The aquatic life benchmarks (for freshwater species) are based on toxicity values reviewed by EPA and used in the Agency's most recent risk assessments developed as part of the decision-making process for pesticide registration. Each Aquatic Life Benchmark is based on the most sensitive, scientifically acceptable toxicity endpoint available for a given taxon of all scientifically acceptable toxicity data available to EPA.

The OECD Environmental Risk Assessment Toolkit describes the work flow for environmental risk assessment and management of chemicals with links to available OECD material relevant for the different steps in risk assessment and management. This new version of the Toolkit is more interactive and has added functionalities. It will be populated with additional tools and case studies in the future.

This document presents the outcomes of the 3rd OECD Biopesticide Seminar, held in 2011, that focused on the topic of “botanicals” (also known as plant extracts). The Seminar reviewed a number of scientific and regulatory issues related to the “characterisation and analyses of botanicals for the use in plant protection products”.

This document includes a table which summarises descriptions of existing models and tools used for exposure assessment, as well as responses to a 2010 survey – conducted by the OECD Task Force on Exposure Assessment - upon which the table was based. The summary table and the responses are also available in the OECD Environmental Risk Assessment Toolkit (http://envriskassessmenttoolkit.oecd.org/).

This document outlines the current status of and available guidance documents/tools on the application, use and presentation of PRTR data in OECD member countries and the Commission for Environmental Co-operation based on the results of a survey conducted in November 2011.

This document outlines basic background information on release estimation techniques (RETs) for point sources and provides resources on available RETs of different national/regional Pollutant Release and Transfer Register systems. It was originally published in 2002, and has been updated to reflect new and additional information.

US Environmental Protection Agency derived the Human health benchmarks for pesticides by applying the health effects data from pesticide registrations to the typical methods used for developing drinking water health advisories. It was developed to enable states, water systems and the public to better determine whether the detection of a pesticide in drinking water or source waters for drinking water may indicate a potential health risk.

This document provides guidance on conducting laboratory tests to determine and assess the efficacy of test substances and/or the effectiveness of test products used as baits for the control of cockroach species in indoor environments.

30/01/2013 –The first update to the third generation of the QSAR Toolbox (version 3.1) has now been released containing improved search functionalities, interface improvement, a new database for observed rat in vivo metabolism; updated auto oxidation and metabolism simulators; updated DNA binding profiler and additional ways of expressing mixtures composition.