Consumers are at the centre of the global economy. Their spending accounts for around 60% of GDP in OECD countries. As the largest economic group, they can play an important role in the digital and green transitions. However, they face numerous challenges requiring decisive action. Digital markets give rise to significant and often obscured risks, including a range of harmful business practices undermining consumer choice and trust. Unsafe products are readily available for sale online and digital technologies in products may pose novel product safety risks. And despite many consumers wanting to make more sustainable choices, they often encounter obstacles. As these issues transcend borders and other policy areas, robust consumer policy and enforcement, supported by policy and empirical research and international and cross-policy co-operation, are critical to protect and empower consumers. This plenary will set the scene for the Ministerial - an unprecedented opportunity to explore how whole-of-government and multi-disciplinary approaches can address risks and opportunities consumers face in digital markets and those for goods and services with environmental impacts, and how the OECD can support countries in tackling these challenges.

Digital markets offer consumers easy access to goods, services, and information, and digital technologies hold the promise of improving their lives. However, these markets often fail to deliver their full benefits to consumers. Digital business models and technologies can exacerbate information and structural power asymmetries, facilitating harmful business practices. These include manipulative online design, fake reviews, subversive personalisation, pervasive tracking, exploitation of behavioural biases, illegal algorithmic discrimination, fraud and scams. Such practices can weaken consumer choice and trust and create an uneven playing field for businesses. All consumers may be vulnerable to them and some groups, defined for example by age or gender, may face particular risks The consequences can be substantial, ranging from financial loss, privacy erosion to psychological harm. A strong consumer policy environment is needed to protect consumers and ensure trust in digital markets. This session will explore the opportunities and challenges of the digital transition for consumers, the actions consumer policy makers and enforcers can take, and where further research is needed.

Unsafe products can have devastating health and financial consequences for consumers and give rise to major costs for economies. The digital transition exacerbates these risks, with banned or recalled products readily available online, including from online marketplaces and overseas sellers, creating new market surveillance and enforcement challenges. Products incorporating digital technologies, such as AI and virtual reality, may pose novel risks, including mental health harms or hazards from updates or new functions. The green transition also raises product safety concerns, such as unsafe materials in recycled products and the safety of second-hand, refurbished, shared, or repaired products. Addressing these new risks, while considering impacts on different consumer groups – for example defined by gender or age – will ensure regulations remain effective and bolster consumer trust and uptake of innovative and more sustainable products. This session will explore how jurisdictions are addressing product safety risks in digital markets, how to address challenges in the circular economy, and how the OECD and stakeholders can support these efforts. During this session, the launch of the Global Awareness Campaign on Lithium-ion Battery Safety will take place.

Studies show that many consumers globally are concerned about the environment and that these concerns can be important to consumer decisions. In well-functioning markets, these consumers have the potential to incentivise businesses to provide more sustainable goods and services, including through innovative business models and digital tools. However, consumers may be impeded from acting on their preferences by a lack of clear, accurate and easily understandable information about the environmental impact of products, misleading or unsubstantiated green claims, and other obstacles, such as cost and availability. To address these, jurisdictions are implementing policy and enforcement measures, including taking action against misleading green claims or facilitating repair. Insights into consumer understanding of environmental claims and possible obstacles to sustainable consumption can inform evidence-based policy measures. Business initiatives and digital technologies can also play a role in facilitating the green transition. This session will explore obstacles to sustainable consumption consumers face, the role consumer policy and other policy areas can play to help consumers who want to make green choices to do so, and areas for further research.

Complex international supply chains, global online marketplaces, transboundary technologies, such as AI, and heightened consumer interest worldwide in addressing climate change, underline the importance of effective cross-border consumer policy and enforcement co-operation. Indeed, OECD evidence indicates cross-border transactions can give rise to amplified risks, such as more frequent scams, exposure to unsafe products and difficulties obtaining redress. But despite enhancements in global and regional efforts, challenges persist, such as a lack of legal authority to engage with other jurisdictions. Effective co-operation also requires robust domestic frameworks, which may need improvement in some cases. And today’s consumer challenges give rise to increasing intersections with other policy areas, suggesting benefits from multidisciplinary approaches. This session will explore ways to improve international policy and enforcement co-operation on consumer issues, and the OECD’s role in this area.

The global consumer class is rapidly expanding. By 2031, the number of consumers with the financial means to participate in markets beyond basic needs is expected to reach five billion -- a one billion increase from 2023. This highlights the growing role of consumers in the global economy and the potential for consumer policy to support economic development. Indeed, by protecting consumers from risks in the marketplace and empowering informed choices, consumer policy can lead to more efficient markets, greater trust and better economic outcomes. At the same time, consumer policy can help foster more inclusive societies, by addressing harms to specific sociodemographic groups and integrating gender considerations. And in emerging and developing economies, stronger consumer policy frameworks can help alleviate poverty. This session will explore how consumer policy can promote development and inclusivity and ways to strengthen dialogue with emerging and developing economies.