Cities can generate growth and jobs while becoming greener – this is the message of the OECD’s new Green Growth in Cities report. Drawing on case studies of Paris, Chicago, Kitakyushu and Stockholm, the report identifies green policies that can respond to urban growth priorities and suggests how to implement and finance them.

This publication explains why green growth is vital to secure a more sustainable future for developing countries. Covering 74 policies and measures from 37 countries and 5 regional initiatives, this publication outlines an action-oriented twin-track agenda to guide national and international policies and practices to successfully tackle green growth.

The 2013 Forum was held on 5-6 December and discussed how governments can improve their investment policy framework to reduce the risk and attract long-term private finance in support of green growth.

Colombia’s rich natural heritage as one of the world’s most bio-diverse countries is coming under increasing pressure from extractive industries, livestock grazing, urbanisation and car use, according to a new OECD report.

Iceland must balance growth in power and tourism industries with nature conservation, OECD says Iceland has one of the world’s most pristine natural environments and its glaciers, volcanoes and hot underground springs bring major economic benefits via renewable energy and tourism.

Despite large and growing investments in knowledge and innovation, productivity growth in many countries has slowed in recent years. At the same time, the urgent need for more rapid innovation (including its uptake and diffusion) in several key areas, such as in environment. This joint OECD-NBER workshop on 25-26 September 2014 will bring together academic experts to consider these challenges.

Southeast Asia’s over-reliance on natural resources like oil, gas, minerals and wood for economic growth is unsustainable over the long term and is causing environmental damage that will hurt future prosperity if left unchecked, according to a new OECD report.

The G20 needs to go structural, social, and green! With fiscal and monetary policy room nearly exhausted, structural reforms are the best choices, sometimes the only choice. The OECD battle cry in this regard has been unchanged since 2008: “go structural!”.

As environmental pressures continue to rise, governments throughout the OECD area have not been sitting back. If anything, the stringency of their policy measures has been increasing on the whole, not least to combat pollution and climate change. And as the evidence shows, stringent environmental policies can be introduced without hurting overall productivity.

In today’s hard times, policy-makers can find it difficult to sell their environmental policies. To many, these policies represent a burden on the economy.

Climate change and, more generally, environmental damage have quantifiable economic and health costs, which weigh on long-term growth and well-being. If left unchecked, climate change is projected to decrease global GDP by 0.7 to 2.5 % by 2060. At the same time, the costs to society of air pollution already appear substantial–equivalent to some 4% of GDP across OECD countries and even higher in some rapidly developing economies.

For many years one of the predominant conventional wisdoms in both business and policymaking circles was that cutting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions necessitates a sacrifice in economic growth.

The OECD’s Annual Meeting at Ministerial Level reinforced member governments’ support across a broad range of key OECD work.

The natural environment provides crucial inputs and services for economic development, but its role for productivity growth is insufficiently explored. Environmental scarcities can pose a drag on productivity growth and a risk for its sustainability.

Water is linked to many economic activities, and there are complex channels through which water affects economic growth. The purpose of this report is to provide background information useful for a quantitative global assessment of the impact of water scarcity on growth using a multi-region, recursive-dynamic, Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model.

This Global Forum, held on 24-25 October 2016, aimed to shed light on the links between environment and economic growth, and the toolkits to quantify these links. It provided a platform to explore how a well-managed natural environment can contribute to economic growth and how an effective and efficient regulatory system can best be designed?

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.

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.

OECD overview report on Employment Implications of Green Growth: Linking jobs, growth and green policies to the G7 Environment Ministers held on 11-12 June 2017 in Bologna.

Our response to the climate challenge will define our collective future for generations to come. We must act. We must act swiftly, collectively, and decisively.

This Policy Paper summarises key messages about the economic case for water investment, the barriers to investment and the financing gap. It charts a course for action to better value water and to facilitate water investment at scale. The Roundtable on Water Financing, a joint initiative of the OECD, the World Water Council and the Netherlands, will continue to deepen the evidence base and broaden engagement on these issues.

The OECD proposes to conduct a first-of-its-kind review of Indonesia’s green growth policies, with the co-operation of four Ministries.

The Czech economy is thriving, with robust employment, expanding exports and falling government debt. Efforts should now focus on boosting workforce skills and innovation to improve labour supply and productivity, further reduce poverty and inequality, and green the economy, according to two new OECD reports.

This paper explores the consequences on the labour markets of structural changes induced by decarbonisation policies. These policies are likely going to have consequences on labour-income distribution given i) existing rigidities in the labour markets, and ii) their different impacts on sectors and on job categories.

On 19 April, 2019, the OECD held a workshop on mining and green growth in the Eastern Europe, Caucasus, and Central Asia (EECCA) region. The workshop is part of a larger project on mining and environmental sustainability in the EECCA region, following the production of a background paper on the same topic.

The Latvian economy is thriving, with strong job growth driving convergence with more advanced economies. Efforts should now focus on reducing inequality, responding to the challenges posed by population ageing and making growth stronger, inclusive and greener, according to two new OECD reports.

This paper focuses on how national and sub-national governments can align subnational financial flows to transition towards low-carbon, resilient and inclusive cities. The paper is a contribution from the OECD Champion Mayors for Inclusive Growth initiative and to the OECD Programme on Subnational Finance and Investment.

"The success of green growth will depend on whether it is a shared global agenda. Many developing countries are not yet fully equipped to introduce new ‘greener’ policies and tap into the benefits of a green future", declared Mr Gurría at the Global Green Growth Summit.

Mexico has taken action on a number of fronts to implement green growth policies, including integrating climate change mitigation and adaptation plans into their National Development Plan, and implementing energy price schemes that reflect the opportunity costs of consumption. Mexico is also developing its green growth indicators, using the OECD set of green growth indicators proposed in “Towards Green Growth: Monitoring Progress

The costs and consequences of inaction would be colossal, in economic, environmental and human terms. The truth is that changing our model of growth and making it greener and more inclusive is the only credible strategy that we have.

The Regional Growth Core Schönefelder Kreuz and the Technical University of Applied Sciences Wildau in partnership with the OECD Local Economic and Employment Development Programme (LEED) are working on defining and collecting measurable indicators at the regional/ local level that can inform over time of transition to low-carbon economic and industrial activities.

Global Forum on the Knowledge Economy: Towards Strong, Clean and Inclusive Growth

The second Forum – 3GF2012 – will be held in Denmark on 8-9 October 2012 under the thematic headline “Resource Efficiency and Growth”.

Secretary-General Angel Gurría addresses the Lord Mayor of Copenhagen and others to discuss highlights of the forthcoming OECD report on local green growth, as part of our efforts to develop more effective tools for measuring cities’ progress and monitoring the impact of green policies.

Surrounding the 2012 GG-SD Forum, a joint OECD-GGGI (Global Green Growth Institute) workshop took place on 22 November. The workshop featured a discussion among experts and policy makers from developing countries with the aim of sharing evidence and experience on how to create an enabling framework and design policy options for overcoming key challenges and prioritizing inclusive green growth opportunities.

Chile's OECD membership presents challenges both in the context of changing patterns of production and consumption, and in the framework of a more sustainable economy. Specifically, green growth emphasizes improving growth rates, particularly through greening existing industries, as well as through new eco-businesses.

Mexico is faced with difficult trade-offs as it pursues its economic, social and environmental goals. Like other emerging economies Mexico is balancing the need to protect its natural resources with the need to address high levels of income inequality and poverty.

Information on and background documents for the Green Growth African Regional Workshops, 15-18 January 2013. The workshops presented conceptual issues and policy tool kits on implementing green growth policy measures and strategic environmental assessments.

This report presents, for the first time a local ‘green growth’ indicator framework. This indicator framework was developed from the OECD ‘green growth’ strategy at the national level, but modified to highlight issues of transition that are most relevant for local areas.

Putting “Green” at the core of a country’s “Growth” strategy is intelligent public policy at its best! Korea understands that there is no trade-off between green and growth. Much to the contrary: there are strong synergies that can be exploited between pro-growth and pro-green policies.

New business models can help reduce environmental pollution, optimise the use of natural resources, increase productivity and energy efficiency, and provide a new source of economic growth. The development of new business models is also affected by a range of barriers, many of which can be addressed by well-designed policies.

Although the market for green goods and services is growing, the development of new business models is affected by a range of barriers, many of which can be addressed by well-designed policies.

Long-term projections suggest that without policy changes, the continuation of business-as-usual economic growth and development will have serious impacts on natural resources and the ecosystem services on which human well-being depends.

The GGKP’s second annual conference will be held at the OECD Headquarters in Paris on 4-5 April 2013. The discussion will be framed around two headline themes: Greening global value chains and Measurement and reporting for green growth.

What is the role of the private sector in greening the agro-food chain? This OECD/BIAC workshop will examine such issues as the role of new technologies in increasing productivity and reducing waste, as well as developing private-public partnerships.

Stockholm Waterfront Congress Centre 23 – 24 May

Cities can generate growth and jobs while becoming greener – this is the message of the OECD’s new Green Growth in Cities report. Drawing on case studies of Paris, Chicago, Kitakyushu and Stockholm, the report identifies green policies that can respond to urban growth priorities and suggests how to implement and finance them.

Green Growth in Cities presents the OECD Green Cities Programme’s main findings and policy recommendations, and provides a preliminary approach to measuring green growth in cities

This paper discusses the results of the 2011-2012 OECD LEED study of measuring green growth in the Benelux countries (Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxembourg). The study paid particular attention to the challenges of measuring the transition to a low-carbon economy in cross-border areas as they have additional levels of complexity when it comes to measuring and monitoring their low-carbon transition.