OECD – Joint efforts for sustainable economic development

The OECD gives an opportunity to have discussions about the environment and the economy without member countries having to commit themselves formally. This provides a good basis for jointly producing new facts and creating a common platform, even in controversial areas. 

The OECD is a meeting forum for the majority of EU countries, as well as the US, Japan, Mexico, and Australia, among others. Important countries with rapidly growing economies such as Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, and South Africa are often invited to the meetings. 

The government has assigned the Swedish EPA to be responsible for Sweden’s involvement in OECD’s environmental work. This means that we participate in eleven working groups linked to the OECD Environment Directorate, for example in the environmental-economic work regarding climate change, biodiversity, ecosystem services as well as sustainable production and consumption. 

Further down on this page, you will find a list of all the OECD groups that the Swedish EPA participates in. 

On 30-31 March 2022, OECD member states’ environment ministers met at OECD headquarters in Paris. The meeting was arranged as a hybrid with the option to participate via link. But as the last Environment Ministerial took place in 2016 and there was a strong need to meet in person, most ministers were in attendance. The opportunity to listen in real time to the meeting was used by many experts, including some from Sweden.  

The focus of the Environment Ministers’ meeting was climate and plastics, including the presentation of the OECD’s new report “The Global Plastics Outlook”. 

OECD’s report The Global Plastic Outlook (oedcd.org)

Other issues discussed included biodiversity, trade and the environment, environmental justice, health issues, the challenges of digitalisation, and maritime issues.  

A Ministerial Declaration was adopted in which Ministers call on the OECD through its Environment Policy Committee (EPOC). The aim is to develop work in a number of key areas and update OECD standards on the environment by: 

• developing a new global Environmental Outlook report on the state of the world’s environment  
• working on the twin challenges of the digital and net-zero transitions, on trade and environment, on reform of environmentally harmful subsidies, and on the environmental aspects of effective ocean management 
• considering the possible development of an OECD Recommendation on Plastics. 

Ministers invited the OECD to strengthen existing work in various key areas including: 

• Carbon pricing, the OECD Horizontal Project on Climate and Economic Resilience and the International Programme for Action on Climate, IPAC
• the quality, coverage and co-ordination of environmental data
• biodiversity loss
• sustainable finance
• OECD engagement on environmental analysis with non-governmental organisations, civil society, and the private sector, as well as youth, women, and indigenous people’s vulnerable and underserved communities. 

Meeting of the Environment Policy Committee at Ministerial Level - Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (oecd.org) 

One of the OECD’s core activities is to review the countries’ policies, including environmental policies. A review means that a country goes through its environmental performance and receives constructive feedback on how this can be more effective. The review also gives a chance for the country to disseminate its good experience, provide support for environmental measures at the national level, and reduce environmental impact across borders.  

Sweden has been reviewed on three occasions, in 1996, 2004 and 2014. The latest review was published in December 2014.  At that time, the OECD made some 40 recommendations for Sweden to better achieve its environmental goals and to make its environmental policies more effective. Sweden has not submitted a mid-term report this time but has now expressed interest in undergoing an environmental review in 2024-2025. 

Read more about OECD Environmental Performance Reviews: Sweden 2014: OECD Environmental Performance Reviews: Sweden 2014 | OECD Environmental Performance Reviews | OECD iLibrary (oecd-ilibrary.org) 

The OECD Global Plastic Outlook: Economic Drivers, Environmental Impacts and Policy Options, was launched on 22 January this year. The report uses global, country-specific and sectoral data to show how the production, use, and waste of plastics have increased over the past few decades. It discusses ways to reduce plastic pollution and shows what proportion of plastic waste is recycled, landfilled, incinerated, or ends up in rivers, oceans or elsewhere in the environment over time. The report also examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on plastic consumption and the generation of plastic waste. 

See OECD’s new report “The Global Plastic Outlook”: Plastics - OECD 

Climate has been identified by OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann as a key priority in the coming years. Leading several projects related to climate, the OECD has presented a clear increase in ambition for climate-related issues.  The work is being done through five strands: 

• Part 1, Policy pathways to net-zero
• Part 2, Adaptation and resilience to climate change
• Part 3, Public and private finance investment and business action
• Part 4, Going the other way, monitoring and measuring progress towards ambitions
• Part 5, Multilateral and multidisciplinary approaches to build co-operation and drive progress.  

Under these five strands there are around 100 projects involving several directorates and committees. The aim is to develop a toolkit to help decision-makers increase resilience of both climate and economy. This will reduce the risk of passing a “tipping point”, which means entering a situation that is irreversible. The project will explore where these points are, detect synergies and trade-offs with other policy objectives, and provide guidance to governments on cooperation, planning and financing.  

The OECD Environment Directorate has also compiled a database of Covid-19 recovery actions that are likely to affect the environment. The aim is to capture significant policies that have a clear negative or positive impact on the environment. Data has been collected by the OECD through the Energy Policy Tracker and other means.  

France has initiated an International Programme for Action on Climate (IPAC). It was initially outside the regular OECD EPOC work programme, but has now been partially incorporated into the extended project Building Climate and Economic Resilience in the Transition to a Low-Carbon Economy. An IPAC Dashboard was presented at COP 26. 

Read more about IPAC: IPAC | International Programme for Action on Climate - OECD 

During the two-day meeting, Ministers welcomed the launch of the OECD’s Inclusive Forum on Carbon Mitigation Approaches. This major new initiative, modelled on the success of the G20-OECD Inclusive Framework on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting, is designed to facilitate an evidence-based multilateral exchange of information about the different efforts around the world to reach net zero emissions. Over time sharing of knowledge and best practices will help to spread better decisions around the world.  

This inclusive forum will not only contribute to ensuring global effectiveness of combined carbon mitigation efforts, but also work to avoid any counterproductive negative spillovers. The new project, having its first formal meeting in the beginning of 2023, will be staffed from the Swedish side by participants from the Swedish EPA. 

On 25 May 2021, Costa Rica officially became an OECD member as the 38th country in the organisation’s 60-year history. The accession review process is ongoing. On 25 January 2022, the OECD Council decided to launch membership processes with Argentina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Croatia, Peru, and Romania. 

At the 2007 ministerial meeting a decision was made to launch membership processes with Russia, among others. In 2014, the accession process was suspended and the OECD has now decided to end the accession process altogether. 

Read a statement from the OECD Secretary-General on the Russion aggression against Ukraine (oecd.org): Statement from OECD Secretary-General on initial measures taken in response to Russia’s large scale aggression against Ukraine - OECD 

Do you want to know more about the OECD cooperation? Send an email to Hugo Pedrosa Latorre, hugo.pedrosa-latorre@naturvardsverket.se

Here you will find a list of the various OECD groups the Swedish EPA is involved in. If you have questions, contact the participants via e-mail: firstname.lastname@naturvardsverket.se.