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.

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 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 Biosafety Document is intended to supply basic information (biology mainly), useful in environmental risk/safety assessment. Agriculture plant species of Brassica genus are cropped worldwide as oilseeds, vegetables and for other uses.

This revised document supplies basic information (compositional considerations, key constituents), useful in risk/safety assessment of food and feed using new varieties of soybean (Glycine max.). This updated publication replaces the original issue of 2001.

This document compares sectors of industrial activities and their reporting thresholds among different national / regional PRTRs to improve the comparability of PRTR data, and proposes a harmonised list of sectors.

This document provides guidance for performing an exposure assessment based on environmental monitoring data.It covers topics such as environmental levels and distribution of contaminants, ways of using monitoring data in exposure assessments for differing purposes, the collection of data, quality of monitoring activities, as well as several examples of data compilation in member countries and their use in exposure assessment.

This guidance document intends to provide an insight into which pieces of information that are necessary to identify and document an adverse outcome pathway (AOP) and how to present them. The AOP concept has been developed as a means of providing transparent mechanistic justification and weight-of-evidence to reduce uncertainty in the predictions for complex toxicological endpoints.

This biocide document provides guidance on the conduct of laboratory and field tests aimed to assess the efficacy of anti-ants baits for indoor use. A bait contains one or more insecticidal active ingredients combined with food for garden ants.

The Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) database of completed chemical reviews including (in some cases) detailed risk assessment reports addressing human health and the environment. A review, initiated from new concerns, may lead to the reconsideration of the registration of agricultural and veterinary chemicals in the marketplace if potential risks to safety and performance have been identified.

This document follows on from a report entitled Important Issues on Risk Assessment of Manufactured Nanomaterials [ENV/JM/MONO(2012)8]. This report identified a range of issues which the WPMN considered important in risk assessment and which should be addressed in the future. It summarised results of a survey which was circulated to delegations of the WPMN, methodologies used to analyze the survey, and the identified priorities.

This Biosafety document aims to serve as an aid to risk assessors and regulators; providing guidance on handling the aspects of an environmental safety assessment, accessing and using information in situations of low-level presence (LLP) of transgenic plants in seed and grain commodities.

The OECD has published a revision of the 2003 Emission Scenario Document on Wood Preservatives to take into account the experience gained in working with the 2003 ESD. The document has been totally restructured, emission scenarios have been updated and new, niche scenarios have been added. The document is an essential tool for Member countries working in the area of biocidal products assessment.

The OECD is to review its chemical hazard assessment programme with the aim of providing a more specialised service for member countries from 2015.

This document supplies basic information useful in the risk and safety assessment of food and feed using new varieties of oyster mushroom: compositional considerations, key constituents (nutrients, anti-nutrients and toxicants). It is issued in the Novel Food and Feed Safety Series.

This new document is available as a tool for environmental safety assessment of new varieties of sugarcane derived from modern biotechnology. Given the large production of this crop worldwide, its biosafety will be an important issue for many countries.

This Bio-pesticides seminar report presents an overview of similarities and differences between species and strains within the Trichoderma genus. This fungus illustrates many general issues related to the use of micro-organisms for pest management.

eChemPortal uses are encouraged to respond to the on-line survey. Your use of the portal, your expectations, information, substance search, property search, structure search, design and layout. Your answers will help us improve eChemPortal - the Global Portal to Information on Chemical Substances, worldwide source of information about chemicals from authorities and international organisations, to meet your needs.

This report describes an OECD seminar that brought together regulatory authorities, industry representatives and other stakeholders to discuss how to measure the uptake, adoption and implementation, as well as the impact, of Integrated Pest Management. Integrated Pest Management, a term used to describe strategies that promote the safer and more sustainable use of pesticides, is high on the agenda in many regions of the world.

The OECD has published a guidance for characterising oleochemical substances. The method presented gives guidance on how these complex substances can be characterised in a way that their composition is accurately and consistently reflected to ensure that substances with the same chemical composition, manufactured in different countries, can be characterised with the same description for hazard assessment purposes.

The OECD has published the second edition of the guidance on grouping of chemicals. This edition has been augmented with experience and examples encountered in the OECD Cooperative Chemicals Assessment Programme. It also introduces new or revised guidance on elaborating the analogue and category approach, quantitative and qualitative read-across, justifying read-across, and using bioprofiling results for grouping chemicals.

This website gives information about the regulatory approaches adopted by OECD member countries to mitigate pesticide risks to insect pollinators. Following a survey of OECD member countries, it was concluded that mitigation of risks to insect pollinators is important to all its member countries, and that mitigation is a critical component of balancing the benefits of plant protection products with potential risks to insect pollinators.

A report of the 2013 joint OECD/Swedish Chemicals Agency/European Commission workshop on the assessment and management of risks of microbial pesticides that resulted in 20 recommendations for approaches that could be taken now and areas for follow-up work to be undertaken by OECD or Member countries.

This document compiles information on the current methodologies, tools and models and helps readers identify appropriate models/ and methodologies for estimating substance-specific removal/emissions from wastewater treatment systems. It could support efforts to improve these models and tools.

The first version of the Globally Harmonised Submission and Transport Standard was published May 2014. The GHSTS is a standardised set of technical specifications used to assemble electronic files for any pesticide package in a predefined manner. Once the files are assembled according to the specifications, they can be transferred from a business entity to a regulatory authority and can be extracted for use in a regulatory process.

This document is a tool for environmental safety assessment of novel varieties of Cassava derived from modern biotechnology. Cassava is a key staple crop in Africa, Asia and Latin America, this document will be useful to many readers interested in biosafety issues.

This OECD monograph demonstrates how a chemical hazard assessment that considers and ranks all available relevant information - a so-called weight of evidence approach - can be constructed to conclude on a particular hazard endpoint for a chemical, in this case, skin sensitisation for 4-isopropylaniline.

This guidance document proposes an integrated approach on testing and assessment for skin corrosion and irritation, in view of replacing the "testing and evaluation strategy" provided in the supplement to OECD TG404 (to be updated), provides information on key performance characteristics of each information source comprising the IATA, and guidance on how to integrate information for decision making for classification and labeling.

OECD has published a report of a survey that provides information and recommendations on how to deal with stocks of “obsolete” pesticides in OECD member (and partner) countries. Such pesticides’ obsolescence can arise for a number of reasons including product deterioration, product de-registration, and product revision.

This report of a survey collates member countries’ approaches to manage and mitigate the risk of pesticide use near residential areas.

The Joint Substance Data Pool of the German Federal Government and Federal States (GSBL) is now linked to eChemPortal. Records contain information on physical and chemical properties, on ecotoxicological and toxicological parameters and on environmental fate. They provide descriptions of environmental hazards, health dangers, fire and other technical hazards and give information on relevant chemicals-related legislation.

This publication is a tool for environmental safety assessment of EUCALYPTUS novel lines. Planted in the tropics and sub-tropics, E. species can be genetically-engineered for resistance to disease/drought/cold/salinity, or lower lignin content. Elements useful to biosafety evaluation are detailed, e.g. Eucalyptus taxonomy, origin, reproduction, genetics, hybridisation, ecology, allergens-toxins, beneficial chemical products, breeding.

The OECD is pleased to announce, together with the U.S Environmental Protection Agency and the European Commission Joint Research Centre, the Adverse Outcome Pathway Knowledge Base (AOP KB). This is a web-based platform which aims to bring together all the knowledge on how chemicals can induce adverse effects, therefore providing a focal point for AOP development and dissemination.

On 26 September 2014, the OECD Council adopted three new, five updated and one corrected OECD Test Guidelines for the testing of chemicals.

The OECD has published a report on a pilot chemical classification exercise undertaken in 2013 and ‘14. Using a number of chemical assessments agreed in the OECD hazard assessment programme, reasons why classification proposals may differ were investigated. The report concludes on the main reasons for such differences, and recommends some measures to overcome some of them.

PRTR have been established throughout the world to track releases and transfers of potentially harmful chemicals. But most of the PRTR systems were designed without considering comparability, each PRTR has its own requirement of reporting chemicals and sectors. To harmonise globally, OECD reviewed the reporting chemicals and sectors across PRTR systems and produced proposal for harmonised lists of reporting pollutants.

OECD countries have developed PRTR system to track releases and transfers of potentially harmful chemicals. To improve PRTR system, OECD have analysed common elements (pollutants, sectors) in different PRTR systems, mainly focus on institutional arrangement. This serves as a common framework for different PRTR system, and supporting materials for a country that intends to develop or update its PRTR.

An addendum to the OECD Guiding Principles on Chemical Accident Prevention, Preparedness and Response to address Natural Hazards Triggering Technological Accidents (Natech) Risk Management has just been published. The addendum consists of a number of amendments to the Guiding Principles and the addition of a new Chapter to provide more detailed guidance on Natech prevention, preparedness and response.

Micro-organisms play a fundamental role in the environment. Yet their role is the result of complex biogeochemical processes by consortia of micro-organisms and the function of individual species is not clear in many cases. This publication provides an overview of the current situation and relevant developments in environmental microbiology.

This toolbox is a compilation of resources relevant to chemical substitution and alternatives assessments. Alternative assessments are processes for identifying, comparing and selecting safer alternatives to replace hazardous chemicals with the objective of promoting sustainable production and consumption.

The OECD has just published two new Test Guidelines on human health hazard endpoint skin sensitisation. Skin sensitisation refers to an allergic response following skin contact with the tested chemical, as defined by the United Nations Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (UN GHS).

The OECD has published guidance to facilitate the ecological risk assessment of organometallic and organic metal salt substances. A strategy is presented based on key steps that first consider the fate of these substances in the environment, the identification of moieties of concern, and subsequently the selection of an appropriate path forward to either assess the inorganic moiety and/or the individual substance.

Volume I of this series compiles the science-based consensus documents of the OECD Task Force for the Safety of Novel Foods and Feeds from 2002 to 2008.

A set of new and updated OECD Test Guidelines was published at the end of July 2015 to test chemicals and identify hazards such as endocrine disruption, serious eye damage, genotoxicity, skin irritation or corrosion.

This new Advisory Document replaces the 1995 consensus document on the Application of the Principles of GLP to Computerised Systems. It retains all of the key text from the original 1995 document, but includes new text to reflect the current state-of-the art in this field.