Regional Organizations and Activities

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)

Objectives

The OECD was established in 1961. Its basic objectives are: to achieve the highest sustainable economic growth and employment in member countries, while maintaining financial stability; to contribute to sound economic expansion in member and non-member countries, and to contribute to the expansion of world trade on a multilateral, non-discriminatory basis in accordance with international obligations.

Membership

Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, UK, and U.S.

Structure

The supreme body of the OECD is the Council, made up of one representative of each member country (ambassadors). The Council usually meets once a week, and is chaired by the Secretary General. The Council operates by consensus, and produces Decisions (legally-binding on member countries) and Recommendations (expressions of political will). It also approves the programmes of work and budgets for the committees. The OECD has some 150 specialized committees, groups of experts and task forces, including, inter alia, the Economic Policy Committee; Environment Policy Committee (EPOC); Development Assistance Committee; Trade Committee; Financial and Fiscal Affairs Committee; and Agriculture Committee. EPOC oversees the OECD's activity in the field of environment.

Activities

Created in 1971, EPOC provides a forum to share views on, and consider policy responses to, major environmental issues and threats, and encourage cooperation among member countries in the pursuit of shared environmental objectives. EPOC's work on environment is driven by an interest from its members to find more cost-effective ways to achieve environmental objectives, develop new prevention-based strategies for reducing pollution, integrate economic and social goals with environmental aims, and develop stronger international cooperation to address regional and global environmental issues. EPOC meets twice a year at the official level and irregularly, at two to three-year intervals, at the ministerial level. Activities are carried out through four main working parties of EPOC and their subsidiary task groups:

• Working Party on Global and Structural Policy
• Working Party on National Environmental Policy
• Working Party on Environmental Performance
• Joint Meeting of the Chemicals Committee and the Working Party on Chemicals, Pesticides and Biotechnology (Joint Meeting)

EPOC also engages collaboratively with other committees in the Joint Working Party on Trade and Environment, and the Joint Working Party on Agriculture and Environment, as well as Joint Meetings of Tax and Environment Experts. EPOC was recently restructured to better bridge the science, economics and strategic planning dimensions of environmental policy and to delineate work primarily in terms of structural policy issues and domestic policy implementation.

Key areas of activity include: economic and environmental policy integration; environmental outlook and modeling; climate change and environmentally sustainable transport; mutual acceptance of data on chemicals, and biotechnology; resource efficiency; country environmental performance reviews; globalization and environment; indicators; waste management; sustainable consumption patterns; environmental data and information systems; and cooperation with non-member economies.

The first OECD Environmental Outlook was recently published. This landmark report provides an economy-based vision of environmental conditions in 2020, with an emphasis on key sectors and major environmental problems. The Outlook serves as the foundation for the new OECD Environmental Strategy for the decade ahead. The Strategy was the focus of the May 2001 ministerial-level meeting of EPOC, where it was officially adopted.

At the Ministerial Council Meeting in April 1998, Ministers embraced sustainable development as a strategic priority for the Organization and asked the OECD to undertake a three-year project on key aspects of sustainable development. A principal outcome of this work is a major policy report which was roundly endorsed at the 2001 Ministerial Council Meeting. The report attempts to integrate the three pillars of sustainable development - economic, social and environmental - and offers advice in such areas as policy coherence and governance, measurement of progress through indicators, the role of technology and innovation, and the challenge of balancing public policy interventions with market-based approaches.

Environment Canada's Involvement

Environment Canada is actively involved in the OECD environment program. The Department leads Canada's participation in many areas of EPOC's overall work program and has been influential in key areas, including the transboundary management of hazardous wastes, environmentally sound management of chemicals and the mutual acceptance of chemical data. In other areas, such as trade and environment, endocrine disrupting chemicals, good laboratory practice, biotechnology, pesticides, and the environmental aspects of transportation and agriculture, other departments and agencies either lead or make significant contributions to Canada's involvement. Given the OECD's economic policy orientation, a key strategic benefit to Environment Canada is the role that the organization can play in developing approaches to valuing environmental resources and overcoming obstacles to the greater use of market-based instruments for environmental protection.

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