Key resources

Find below the latest OECD reports, key initiatives and insights on the green and digital transitions.

The OECD’s Horizontal Project on Climate and Economic Resilience uses the multidisciplinary reach of the OECD to support governments in driving the swift transformational change needed to tackle climate change. The project provides analysis and insights that take into account the whole climate picture – the need for an accelerated and resilient transition to net zero while building resilience to physical climate impacts – in the context of unexpected global disruptions such as the COVID-19 pandemic and far-reaching effects of Russia’s unprovoked war of aggression in Ukraine.

Digital technologies and data are transformational. People, firms and governments live, interact, produce and work differently than in the past, and these changes are accelerating rapidly. An ecosystem of interdependent digital technologies underpins digital transformation; its constant evolution continues to drive economic and societal changes. This digital technology ecosystem both relies on and produces vast amounts of data, which have become an important source of economic and social value. The OECD Going Digital project aims to help policy makers better understand the digital transformation that is underway and to develop appropriate policies to help shape a positive digital future.

The OECD Local Development Forum is a community of thousands of individuals worldwide, united by their shared commitment to making their communities more resilient, inclusive and sustainable. It brings together representatives of regional and national governments, employment and training agencies, economic and community development agencies, chambers of commerce, social innovators, businesses and NGOs. Through its events and online resources, the Forum serves as a venue for peer learning, disseminating local innovations and best practices at the global level, and bringing the OECD’s work beyond ministries to local communities.

Discover OECD publications

OECD publications aim to make available to a wider readership selected studies on environmental issues drawing on the work of the OECD on digital technologies and green transitions.

Artificial intelligence systems can use massive computational resources, raising sustainability concerns. This report aims to improve understanding of the environmental impacts of AI, and help measure and decrease AI’s negative effects while enabling it to accelerate action for the good of the planet.

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) creates new content in response to prompts, offering transformative potential across multiple sectors such as education, entertainment, healthcare and scientific research. This paper aims to inform about policy considerations and support decision makers in addressing them.

Alongside data and algorithms, AI computing capacity (“AI compute”) is a key enabler for AI and related economic growth and competitiveness. While data and machine learning algorithms receive significant attention in policy circles, the computational infrastructure that makes AI possible gets less. Yet understanding domestic AI compute capacity is critical for policy makers who want to formulate effective AI policies and make intelligent national AI investment choices.

Digital transformation is increasingly recognised as a means to help unlocking the benefits of more inclusive and sustainable growth and enhanced social well-being. In the environmental context, digitalisation can contribute to decoupling economic activity from natural resource use and their environmental impacts. This paper takes stock of the implications of digitalisation for the transition to a resource efficient and circular economy.

This publication identifies manufacturing activities that are particularly difficult to decarbonise and the transformations they require. It shows how these activities are distributed across European regions, focusing on employment at emission-intensive production locations. It identifies conditions for getting access to needed infrastructure and how access conditions differ across regions.

Policies aimed at reducing the environmental impact of human activities have important consequences for labour markets, jobs, and skills. As employment is shifting towards more sustainable activities, workers are increasingly expected to have skills that support the transition to a greener economy. Assessing and anticipating emerging skill needs is crucial to avoid bottlenecks and sustain the green transition. This report sheds light on existing methods to measure changes in skill demand and supply related to the green transition through an in-depth review of practices in five OECD countries (Australia, Austria, France, Norway and Sweden).

The green transition is changing jobs, skills, and local economies. It poses new challenges but also opportunities, both of which will differ across places within countries. This report provides novel evidence on those risks and opportunities across regions in 30 OECD countries. It examines the geography of green-task and polluting jobs and examines the impact of the green transition on gender and socioeconomic inequality by identifying the characteristics of workers in those jobs.

This paper quantifies changes in employment and the demand for skills in the European Union following the implementation of Fit for 55 policies. Between 2019 and 2030, the economy is projected to grow by 1.3% in the Fit for 55 scenario (3% in a Baseline scenario without the Fit for 55 policies).

Increasingly more emphasis is placed on damages and risks that people, companies and governments face in the way they affect their well-being as well as material conditions or financial fundamentals. This Policy Insights provides a glimpse at some of the positive practices to encourage others to make the shift and provide a benchmark against which future action could be measured.

Digitalisation is having a profound impact on social and economic activity. While often benefiting from a very long history of public investment in R&D, digitalisation has been largely driven by the private sector. However, the combined adoption of new digital technologies, increased reliance upon new data sources, and use of advanced analytic methods hold significant potential to: i) improve the effectiveness and enforcement of public policies; ii) enable innovative policy design and impact evaluation, and; iii) expand citizen and stakeholder engagement in policy making and implementation.

Addressing the climate crisis requires the net zero transition of millions of SMEs globally. SMEs have a significant aggregate environmental footprint and need to adopt cleaner business models. Access to finance is essential for SME investments in net zero, but small businesses face considerable challenges in tapping into the growing pool of sustainable finance. This policy paper examines the sustainable finance landscape for SMEs, the various actors in the ecosystem and the key drivers and barriers affecting the supply of and demand for sustainable finance.

This paper discusses the importance of taking entrepreneurs and SMEs into account in climate and environmental policies. It analyses the drivers and barriers of green entrepreneurship and the greening of SMEs, and discusses policy options to support these objectives.

This report develops a framework for data sharing between transport operators that enables them to better integrate transport services and move towards the creation of Mobility as a Service (MaaS) platforms.

This paper has been prepared in the framework of the OECD Programme on Smart Cities and Inclusive Growth. It offers a synthesis of the lively discussions held during the 1st OECD Roundtable on Smart Cities and Inclusive Growth (2019), enriched with analytical research. Next steps in the Programme will further advance knowledge on the drivers and pitfalls of smart cities, help better measure smart city performance, and provide targeted support to interested cities and countries to improve the effectiveness of their smart city initiatives.

This paper (re)defines smart cities as “initiatives or approaches that effectively leverage digitalisation to boost citizen well-being and deliver more efficient, sustainable and inclusive urban services and environments as part of a collaborative, multi-stakeholder process”.

Smart cities represent the future of urban development in Emerging Asia as more and more cities and countries resort to smart technologies to build more efficient and liveable urban environments, boost economic growth, foster well-being and facilitate citizen engagement.

This report analyses Korea’s response to the housing affordability crisis. It notes that Korea has a complex social housing system that, although largely focused on low-income households, such households still suffer from housing poverty in terms of housing stability, affordability and quality.

This report is broken down into four main sections. The first is a broad discussion situating smart mobility within the broader context of smart city and community approaches. The second looks more specifically at smart mobility and outlines opportunities, tensions and principles that may help frame and facilitate smart mobility policies. The third focuses on issues relating to technology and data governance and the frameworks that enable these to occur in a people-centric and pro-innovation way. The fourth section is comprised of a summary of DETF members’ and guests’ responses to a Survey on Smart Mobility initiated by the Saudi G20 Presidency.

The proposed OECD Smart City Measurement Framework encompasses not only the uptake of digitalisation in cities but also how digital innovation can improve well-being outcomes, inclusion, sustainability and resilience. Furthermore, it focuses on urban residents both as recipients or users and as designers of smart cities.

The Green Growth Knowledge Partnership (GGKP) is a global network of experts and organizations dedicated to providing the policy, business and finance communities with knowledge, guidance, data and tools to transition to an inclusive green economy.

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