EPA's Role with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is a forum of 38 member countries that promotes sustainable economic growth. OECD works across a range of policy areas, including economic, environmental, development, social, technology and trade.
EPA leads U.S. engagement with OECD’s Environment Policy Committee (EPOC) and the OECD's Chemical and Biotechnology Committee (CBC) and related subsidiary bodies.
Founded in 1971, EPOC has a long history of promoting effective and economically efficient policies to respond to important environmental concerns. EPOC oversees work on country environmental performance reviews, environmental indicators and outlooks, climate change, natural resource management, policy tools and evaluation, environment and development, and resource efficiency and waste.
EPA’s Office of International and Tribal Affairs (OITA) coordinates across EPA offices and with other U.S. Government agencies to guide the policy work of EPOC and OECD’s environmental portfolio and to provide technical expertise for OECD analyses and reports.
EPOC’s substantive work is undertaken by its working parties and other subsidiary bodies. Representatives from EPA and other U.S. agencies serve as U.S. delegates to the Working Parties and participate in meetings as technical experts.
- See a diagram of EPOC’s Structure (1 pp, 87 K, About PDF).
- Visit the official website of the OECD.
The work of the CBC is focused on developing tools for efficient and effective management of chemicals (including pesticides, industrial chemicals, and products of biotechnology). EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention provides U.S. leadership in this forum, in which other EPA offices, the Food and Drug Administration, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture also participate. The work of the CBC focuses on the harmonization of risk assessment tools and chemical safety policies across jurisdictions and the development and integration of test methods into the CBC’s flagship program, MAD, or Mutual Acceptance of Data. MAD is a system of international agreements whereby adhering countries agree to accept for assessment data generated in other countries if produced using OECD test guidelines and in accordance with good laboratory practices. EPA works closely with other government agencies and with other countries through the OECD to facilitate development of test guidelines, and to keep them current. MAD reduces cost for governments and chemical producers and conserves scientific resources, including the minimal use of laboratory test animals. The CBC also provides a forum for work and experience-sharing and cooperation on chemical safety and risk assessment among all OECD countries and participating non-member governments.
Environmental Performance Review
In 2023, for the first time in over 15 years, the OECD conducted an Environmental Performance Review of the United States. The U.S. EPR is focused on our approaches to marine litter, including plastics, and examines other high priority issues such as environmental justice and EPA implementation of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act. The final EPR report was released to the public and press on the morning of June 22, 2023 at the OECD’s Washington Center.
Inclusive Forum for Carbon Mitigation Approaches
Through the OECD’s Environmental Policy Committee, EPA has been working with OECD member countries on climate assessments, including follow up actions from the climate COPs, reports or other follow up actions requested by the G7 or G20. EPA is serving on the 12-country steering committee for the OECD Secretary General-led Inclusive Forum for Carbon Mitigation Approaches (IFCMA). and leading the U.S. participation in the project in coordination with colleagues from Department of Treasury, the State Department, the White House Council of Economic Advisors, the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, and the National Security Council. The IFCMA is a climate policy modeling research initiative to compare the effectiveness of different approaches to climate mitigation and enable better international coordination. The goal of IFCMA technical work is to facilitate multilateral dialogue on climate change mitigation policies and to create a database of high-quality and comparable data that inventories GHG mitigation (and GHG mitigation-relevant) policies – including price-based and non-price-based instruments – maps the policies to their emissions base and increases understanding of the effectiveness of diverse policy approaches on emissions reduction. More than 60 countries participated in the launch and first technical meeting of IFCMA.
OECD Global Forum on Environment Dedicated to Mercury
EPA staff participated in the OECD Global Forum on Environment dedicated to mercury which took place from November 7-8, 2022 in Paris, France. The Forum’s focus was on promoting effective engagement, collaboration, and action to eliminate or reduce mercury from supply chains for gold, mercury-added products, and mercury processes. EPA represented the US delegation to the OECD Environment Policy Committee (EPOC) on a conclusion panel for the forum, highlighting the importance of applying an environmental justice lens when addressing mercury issues across products and sectors. EPA staff led discussions on the role of cooperation in fighting ongoing illegal trade of mercury and mercury-added products and presented on approaches to reduce mercury trade from decommissioned mercury-cell chlor-alkali facilities.
Environmental Justice Commitments Within the OECD
Several environmental justice commitments within the OECD were made in April 2022 when the EPA Administrator co-chaired the environment ministerial. EPA was essential to the inclusion of an inaugural cross-cutting program on environmental justice for the first time in OECD’s core 2023-2024 Program of Work and Budget and the addition of environmental justice concepts as criteria to the accession process and requirements of new countries joining the OECD. Our engagement, including support through voluntary contributions, is key to successfully shaping this new stream of work, which includes three programmatic areas: a synthesis report and global outlook of how different countries consider and advance principles of environmental justice; an OECD led international workshop on environmental justice scheduled for February 2024; and development of analysis and analytical tools for measuring economic impacts on communities with environmental justice concerns.
Learn More:
Examples of Specific EPA and OECD Areas of Work
Environment Ministerial
Waste
Pesticides
Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) around the World
Additional Information
- US Mission to the OECD
- Explore all of EPA's Partnering with International Organizations
- EPA Press Release for MSR Participation
Contacts
For additional information on EPA's work with the OECD, contact EPA's Office of International and Tribal Affairs.