Publications

This report describes the development of the green bond market as an innovative instrument for green finance, and provides a review of policy actions and options to promote further market development and growth. Since 2007-08, so-called 'green bonds' have emerged and the market has risen from USD 3 billion in 2011 to USD 95 billion in issuance in 2016. For policy makers, the report proposes a framework for understanding potential directions of bond market evolution, increased convergence of rules and definitions, and quantitative analysis of the potential contribution that bond markets can make to a low-carbon transition.

In this document the importance of mechanistic consideration in quantitative structure-activity relationship ((Q)SAR) analysis, the critical role of mechanistic consideration in improving various (Q)SAR approaches and possible integrative approaches of combining chemoinformatics and bioinformatics are discussed, mainly using carcinogenicity as an illustrative toxicity endpoint. The principles and issues described in this document are general and may also be used for various types of chemical assessment. The intended target of readership is for global chemical hazard/risk assessors in regulatory agencies, industries, non-governmental organization and academia who require reliable and scientifically supportable (Q)SAR information and predictions in their assessments as well as for developers/researchers who endeavour to produce scientifically reliable (Q)SAR predictive models and tools.

Following a general update of the Genetic Toxicology TGs in 2015, the present Document was written to provide succinct and useful information to individuals unfamiliar with genetic toxicology testing, as well as experienced individuals wishing to obtain an overview of the recent changes that were made to the TGs during the recent round of revisions. It provides: 1) general background and historical information on the OECD genetic toxicology TGs; 2) a brief overview of the important types of genetic damage evaluated by these tests; 3) a description of the retained TGs; and 4) the issues and changes addressed therein during the revision process. 

This guidance document is part of the OECD effort to provide guidance for assessing the hazards of chemical substances while gaining efficiencies and improving animal welfare. The approach described in this guidance document is to consider closely related chemicals as a group, or category, rather than as individual chemicals. While the first edition was published in 2007, This edition has been augmented with experience and examples encountered in the OECD CooperativeChemicals Assessment Programme, formerly the HPV Chemicals Programme since 2007, the second edition also intends to introduce new or revised guidance on: elaborating the analogue and category approach, quantitative and qualitative read-across, justifying read-across, using bioprofiling results for grouping chemicals, and specific types of category approaches (e.g. chemicals of variable composition, and metals).

Several models, tools and methods have been published in the past 20 years to include bioavailability in risk assessment and several OECD member countries already have developed frameworks and published guidance documents for taking metal specificities into account in environmental risk assessment. The aim of the current guidance is not to replace the aforementioned frameworks or guidance documents, but rather, to provide an overarching framework on how to apply these tools depending on which data are actually available/needed to assess the bioavailability of the metal under scrutiny. Further harmonisation of these approaches and methodology, where appropriate, over the different OECD countries is recommended and could facilitate a more worldwide application and the Mutual Acceptance of Data since using common assessment approaches may help comparing and exchanging data sets, which could result in significant resource savings. 

With a view to assisting the evaluation of integrated approaches to testing and assessment (IATA) in regulatory decision-making within OECD Member Countries, this guidance document provides a set of principles for reporting defined approaches to testing and assessment that can be used as one of the components within IATA. Templates are also provided to enable a structured approach to their documentation in order to facilitate their evaluation. A defined approach to testing and assessment consists of a fixed data interpretation procedure (DIP) applied to data generated with a defined set of information sources to derive a result that can either be used on its own, or together with other information sources within an IATA, to satisfy a specific regulatory need. Thus, a defined approach to testing and assessment can be used to support the hazard identification, hazard characterisation and/or safety assessment of chemicals. This guidance is intended to be used alongside similar guidance aimed at harmonising the reporting of other IATA components such as QSARs, grouping and read-across strategies, and non-guideline in vitro methods.

In this document a strategy is presented to facilitate the ecological risk assessment of organometallic compounds (OM) and organic metal salts (OMS), outlining key steps that are based on elucidation of the fate of these substances in the environment. This document puts forth the recommendation that the initial determination of their fate in the environment is a primary factor for deciding how these substances should be assessed recognising that regulatory and program requirements will vary with each jurisdiction.

This document is a report of the Workshop on a framework for the development and use of integrated approaches to testing and assessment which was held on 17-19 November 2014 in Crystal City VA, USA. This framework should provide guiding principles, and technical guidance on how results from alternative approaches (in silico, in chemico, in vitro including high throughput and high content test methods) should be interpreted for characterising (both qualitatively and quantitatively) the adverse effects in animals and humans and/ or the environment, so that they can be used for hazard identification, hazard characterisation and risk assessment. The workshop was organised in close cooperation with the World Health Organisation following a proposal from OECD member countries in June 2013. 

This document presents a harmonized method for characterising, for assessment purposes, a specific subcategory of UVCBs (Substances of Unknown or Variable composition, Complex reaction products or Biological materials): hydrocarbon solvent substances. The method presented in this document gives guidance on how hydrocarbon solvent substances can be characterised in a way that their composition is accurately and consistently reflected. This ensures that substances with the same chemical composition, manufactured in different countries, can be characterised with the same description for hazard assessment purposes. A common understanding and approach to characterising UVCBs would enable regulatory authorities to increase cooperation in the field of hazard assessment and help industry deal with regulatory requirements from multiple jurisdictions.

This Guidance Document proposes an integrated approach on testing and assessment (IATA) for skin corrosion and irritation. It also provides consistent information on key characteristics of each of the individual information sources of the IATA, and relevant guidance on how to integrate information for decision making (including decisions on the need for further testing) for final decisions for classification and labelling.