Governments and the business sector are increasingly recognising the potential of biodiversity products and services; markets which can help to promote the sustainable use and conservation of biodiversity. Some are already being profitably marketed, but private markets also need to be supported by appropriate public policies. This publication provides a conceptual framework to help identify and promote the use of markets in the biodiversity policy arena, and draws on the findings of a joint OECD/World Bank workshop held in Paris in January 2001. It discusses the concept of 'public goods' and considers four examples of emerging markets: organic agriculture; sustainable forestry; non-timber forest products, such as natural cosmetics and herbal medicines; and genetic resources.

This publication provides a conceptual framework for market creation in the biodiversity policy arena, as well as several examples of where the use of markets can assist policy makers in the search for more sustainable use and conservation of biodiversity.

This OECD Handbook shows how public policy in the form of market creation can be used to internalise the loss of biodiversity. It promotes the use of markets to ensure that our collective preferences for conservation and sustainable use are reflected in economic outcomes.

This report assesses the progress that OECD countries have made in implementing objectives set out in an Environmentl Strategy adopted in 2001, as well as in applying the 71 national actions they agreed as part of that Strategy.

Market-based environmental instruments are the most creative of the many initiatives devised to combat air and water pollution and promote biodiversity. Among these, none has attracted more attention than the burgeoning trade in environmental allowances and credits. Originally developed in the United States around 1990, these varieties of tradable instruments were globally validated by the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, which explicitly contemplates the buying and selling of environmental allowances and credits among both sovereign states and corporate entities. Despite U.S. opposition to the Kyoto Protocol, global trading in pollution instruments is growing at an exponential rate, with instruments representing over 70 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions estimated to have been traded in 2003. Eco-Finance is the first in-depth legal analysis of this extraordinary hybrid of environmental regulation and global financial markets. It deals with what are currently the two dominant types of market-based environmental instruments: market-traded environmental instruments (which include the tradable pollution allowances envisaged by the Kyoto Protocol), and environmental financing instruments (which include the emerging class of environmental and socially responsible investment funds). Among the numerous topics and issues treated by Ali and Yano are the following: the ?cap-and-trade? regime; debt-for-environment swaps; forestry securitisations; greenhouse gas emissions markets; carbon funds and swaps; tradable green certificates weather derivatives; duty to hedge climatic risks; catastrophe bonds; protected cell companies; the prudent investor rule; and ethical security indices. The authors deal searchingly with the critical legal issues that arise in connection with these market-based environmental instruments, such as the danger that courts might recharacterise underlying risk transfer agreements as illegal insurance products. For this reason, and for its wealth of practical, theoretical, and informational detail, Eco-Finance will be of enormous value to a broad range of legal, governmental, and business professionals, including environmental regulators, securities regulators, financial market professionals, institutional and other fiduciary investors, corporate risk managers, and investment fund managers, as well as practitioners and academics in both environmental law and financial law.

A comprehensive report on OECD activities in 2002-2003.

It is vitally important for businesses to have a holistic understanding of the many issues surrounding and shaping sustainability, from competitors to government and political factors, to economics and ecological science. This integrated textbook for MBA and senior-level undergraduates offers a comprehensive overview of the issues of sustainability as they relate to business and influence corporate strategy. It also features a wide range of cases and an extensive discussion of tools to incorporate sustainability issues into strategic decision making, helping instructors and students to build and then apply a solid understanding of sustainability in business.