Environmental Enforcement Indicators

Report Title: Environmental Performance Reviews - A Practical Introduction
Source: OECD, 1997
Author: OECD
Web Link: http://www.oecd.org

Date of report review: September 14, 2001

Report notes:

• The Practical Introduction to OECD Environmental Performance Reviews outlines the process for conducting OECD country performance reviews. The standard review process includes these steps: preparation stage, review mission stage, peer review meeting by GEP (Group on Environmental Performance), publication stage, and follow-up and monitoring. The feature steps to this process are the review mission stage and peer review method
• The review mission stage engages a team of experts to physically meet with government and non-government representatives of the country. Each expert prepares a draft evaluation of the country’s environmental performance.
• The draft report (after several rounds of review) is the subject of a GEP Peer Review meeting, where the country under review is allocated a full day of examination. No minutes are taken at this meeting to provide for open discussion and exchange of views. At last, a county performance review is published.
• Each of the 30 OECD countries has undergone an environmental performance review between 1990 and 2000. The OECD completed 4 additional performance reviews of non-OECD countries (Poland, Belarus, Russia, Bulgaria). Each of the reviews are available on line. We have a hard copy of Belgium’s report.
• The OECD’s environmental strategy is to reduce overall pollution and ensure environmental sustainability in OECD countries; integrate environmental and economic policies; and strengthen co-operation with the international community.
• The environmental performance reviews address whether countries are meeting environmental objectives; whether the objectives are modest or ambitious; and if the results are cost effective.
• The environmental performance reviews follow a pressure-state-response framework (PSR). Pressures are used to describe the existing situation in a country, for example, sources of industrial point source pollution. State is used to describe the country’s state of the environment, for example, groundwater quality. Response is used to describe the country’s response, for example, waste management rules.
• The response indicator includes both the individual and collective actions, like those of administrations (municipal, national, and participation at the international level).
• A checklist is used to conduct the environmental performance reviews. Each environmental indicator, such as air, water, international co-operation, and integration of environmental and economic policies, is measured through the PSR framework.
• For each environmental indicator there is a set of response objectives, implementation, and information measurements. For example, under the international co-operation indicators, response objectives include international and regional commitments on forest resources, air pollution, and international movements of hazardous waste. In this case, implementation is measured by whether the country has ratified and implemented the corresponding environmental protection agreement. Information is measured by whether the country reports on its progress of implementing the international commitments.
• It seems as though the OECD country environmental review process, where applicable, mirrors reporting requirements for international environmental protection agreements.

Suggested initiatives: n/a