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This document incorporates two parts, an MRL Calculator User Guide and an MRL Calculator White Paper which discusses the methodology used in the User Guide.

Faced with increased unemployment, declining productivity and weak public finances, most OECD countries have adopted policies of fiscal consolidation and structural reform in goods, labour and financial markets. Price stability is now at hand, but progress in improving fiscal positions has been slow. In Europe, unemployment remains high. To assess progress to date and the challenges ahead, an international conference on "Interactions between Structural Reform, Macroeconomic Policies and Economic Performance" took place as part of a follow-up programme of work on the OECD Jobs Study. This publication presents the conference papers and the discussions following them.

The need to mainstream biodiversity into economic growth and development is being increasingly recognised and is now also firmly embedded in the Sustainable Development Goals. Drawing on experiences and insights from 16 predominantly megadiverse countries, this report examines how biodiversity is being mainstreamed in four key areas: 1) at the national level, including national development plans and other strategies, institutional co-ordination and national budgets; 2) the agriculture, forestry and fisheries sectors; 3) in development co-operation; and 4) the monitoring and evaluation of biodiversity mainstreaming and how this could be improved.

As countries scale up climate action, they face the challenge of expanding renewable power while tackling biodiversity loss. Transitioning away from fossil fuels can reduce climate-related pressure on biodiversity, but brings its own risks. Unless carefully managed, the expansion of renewable power could compromise biodiversity. This report synthesises evidence on biodiversity impacts from renewable power infrastructure, with a focus on solar power, wind power and power lines. It identifies opportunities for mainstreaming biodiversity into power sector planning and policy to deliver better outcomes for nature and the climate. Drawing on good practice insights from across the globe, the report offers governments recommendations to align renewable power expansion with biodiversity goals.

Agri-environmental payment schemes which operate as voluntary programmes that pay farmers to achieve certain environmental criteria have gained increasing interest and popularity amongst policy makers and farmers. There is growing evidence, however, that the majority of such schemes that have been implemented have had little environmental effectiveness. Building on past OECD work, this report identifies and discusses “best practice” design principles for cost-effective agri-environmental payment schemes. To this end, the report reviews the literature, develops a Policy Spectrum Framework that classifies payment types based on key design features for achieving cost-effective outcomes, and presents policy simulations undertaken to assess the cost-effectiveness of different payment designs and a multi-country choice experiment conducted with farmers to explore their preferences for different types of payments, ranging from practice-based to results-based payments.

Investments in water and sanitation are a prerequisite to deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in particular on SDG 6 ensuring availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all. Blended finance can play an important role in strategically investing development finance to mobilise additional commercial finance needed to fill the current investment gaps. Thus far, however, blended finance has not reached scale in the water and sanitation sector. A greater evidence base is needed to better understand the current applications as well as the potential of blended models in the water and sanitation sector. This publication takes a commercial investment perspective and provides insights into three subsectors: (1) water and sanitation utilities, (2) small-scale off-grid sanitation and (3) multi-purpose water infrastructure and landscape-based approaches. The publication draws out recommendations for policy makers and practitioners to apply and scale innovative blended finance approaches where most appropriate.

This report explores how institutional investors can apply risk-based due diligence as recommended by the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises on Responsible Business Conduct and help them prevent and mitigate adverse climate impacts associated with their investee companies on society and the environment. It provides practical recommendations on how to conduct due diligence as a way to connect climate commitments at portfolio level with real-economy impacts and draws on other frameworks and tools for assessing, managing or disclosing climate impacts associated with investments.

This report offers guidance on how to prepare regions and cities for the transition towards a climate-neutral and circular economy by 2050 and is directed to all policymakers seeking to identify and implement concrete and ambitious transition pathways. It describes how cities, regions, and rural areas can manage the transition in a range of policy domains, including energy supply, conversion, and use, the transformation of mobility systems, and land use practices. It takes stock of discussions between academic and policy experts emanating from a series of high-level expert workshops organised in 2019 by the OECD and the European Commission. Bringing together frontier thinking and practical examples regarding the transition to a climate-neutral economy, the transition to a circular economy, the transition in cities, the transition in rural areas, and financing and scale-up of transition action, this report identifies cross-cutting lessons to support urban, regional, and rural decision makers in managing trade-offs and in promoting, facilitating and enabling environmental and energy transitions.

Water is a key prerequisite for human and economic development, and for maintaining ecosystems. However, billions of people lack access to water and sanitation services, mainly due to poor governance and inadequate investment and maintenance. This report, which emphasises the economic and financial aspects of water resources management and water service provision, the need for an integrated approach (including governance considerations) to address these complex policy challenges, and the importance of establishing a firm evidence base to support policy development and implementation, summarises the results of OECD work in this area. 

The National Dialogue on Water in Thailand was initiated in 2021 under the regional initiative with the Ministry of Environment of the Republic of Korea (MoE), the Asia Water Council (AWC) and the OECD. The Dialogue covers two main topics selected by the Government of Thailand (ONWR). The first one is water demand management, with a focus on the Eastern Economic Corridor. The second one is financing water supply and sanitation. Both combine to support a sustainable and resilient development pathway for Thailand's fast-growing economy. The analyses and policy recommendations cover issues such as the design of economic policy instruments, water allocation regimes, increasing demand for reclaimed water, or benchmarking the performance of water utilities, and blended finance for water supply and sanitation services. They are informed by the expertise of Thai stakeholders, the OECD and the Asia Water Council. They can be a source of inspiration in other contexts in South East Asia and globally.

This report assesses the key bottlenecks within the water-energy-land-food nexus in Korea, and proposes policy recommendations and governance arrangements to future-proof environmental integrity and enhance sustainable growth. The increasing pressure caused by urbanisation, industrialisation, population growth and climate change in Korea has led to more land consumption and augmented water supply, at the expense of the environment and at a high cost for public finance. Korea has engaged with the OECD via a national policy dialogue to explore best practices from the wider international community to better manage the nexus at the river basin scale.

Improving resource productivity and ensuring a sustainable resource and materials management building on the principle of the 3Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle) is a central element of green growth policies. It helps to improve the environment, by reducing the amount of resources that the economy requires and diminishing the associated environmental impacts, and sustain economic growth by securing adequate supplies of materials and improving competitiveness. To be successful such policies need to be founded on a good understanding of how minerals, metals, timber or other materials flow through the economy throughout their life cycle, and of how this affects the productivity of the economy and the quality of the environment. This report contributes to this understanding. It describes the material basis of OECD economies and provides a factual analysis of material flows and resource productivity in OECD countries in a global context. It considers the production and consumption of materials, as well as their international flows and available stocks, and the environmental implications associated with their use. It also describes some of the challenges and opportunities associated with selected materials and products that are internationally-significant, both in economic and environmental terms (aluminium, copper, iron and steel, paper, phosphate rock and rare earth elements).