The need for government action for a green transition has never been more evident. Governments must act quickly and proactively to address the interlinked crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, and other environmental threats. As mentioned in the United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change report on the technical dialogue of the first global stocktake, the “world is not on track to meet the long-term goals of the Paris Agreement” to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius and the “window for meaningful change is closing”. Furthermore, the United Nations Environment Programme work on a common approach to biodiversity, mentions that “up to one million species are threatened with extinction, many within decades” and irreplaceable marine, terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems around the world are at the risk of collapse or have already been destroyed. As underscored by the OECD Reinforcing Democracy Initiative’s pillar on Governing Green the future of democratic governance is closely tied to environmental action. Now is the critical time to rapidly accelerate action to make progress toward the green transition as governments cannot afford to falter.
Regulation is one of the primary tools, alongside taxes and spending, that governments can use to achieve environmental goals. While civil society and businesses play crucial roles, achieving the structural changes necessary for the green transition ultimately relies on governments mainstreaming an environmental approach throughout their laws and regulations. How regulations are designed, implemented, and reviewed underlies a successful green transition. High-quality government regulation can successfully address climate change and other environmental threats while simultaneously encouraging technological innovation and promoting economic growth (OECD, 2023[1]).
In this context, the OECD Better Regulation for the Green Transition Stress-testing Toolkit (2025) helps policymakers assess the readiness of their regulatory policy frameworks for the green transition. The toolkit was developed to support countries in their efforts to “regulate for the planet” – i.e. to consider the impacts on the planet within the entire regulatory policy cycle.
The toolkit is structured along the stages of the regulatory policy cycle and covers practices for designing, implementing, and evaluating primary laws and subordinate regulations with a “green lens” across all policy areas. It emphasises consultation, co-ordination, and capacity-building mechanisms and aims to support the integration of environmental objectives throughout the regulatory process. This toolkit provides self-assessment questions to help policymakers evaluate the degree to which their regulatory processes and institutions reflect an approach to rulemaking that will support the green transition. Through its application, policymakers can identify areas for improvement, as well and potential risks and vulnerabilities within their regulatory frameworks and can inform proactive reforms to address challenges.
The toolkit is based on the OECD’s work with member and partner countries, draws from the findings of the Better Regulation for the Green Transition policy paper and was developed in co-operation with the Korean Ministry of Environment and the Korea Environment Institute.
By providing assessment questions to evaluate the extent to which regulatory frameworks reflect an approach to rulemaking that supports the green transition, the toolkit offers government officials, regulators, stakeholders, and experts an analytical instrument to stress-test their regulatory policy frameworks from an environmental perspective – i.e. to determine whether their frameworks are sufficiently robust, resilient, and responsive to effectively pursue environmental goals and address environmental considerations. Simultaneously, the toolkit can help policymakers identify weaknesses and shortcomings in existing regulatory frameworks to support the green transition.