Global environmental issues, policy responses, and their linkages with trade
l the role of innovation, including block-chain
agenda, and the role of standards, innovation, and international co-operation is central to achieving this aim.
technology. The discussions re-iterated the growing importance of trade in the circular economy transition, noting that GVCs mean that products cross borders several times before reaching final consumers and, once they reach their endof-life, they are often re-exported. Efforts to decouple economic growth and materials use need to consider domestic consumption as well as materials embedded in imported goods. The debate investigated the tension between the long-standing principle of avoiding trade in waste due to potential negative environmental impacts and growing awareness of the importance of waste, scrap and secondary materials as tradable commodities. The need to harmonise domestic circular economy policies, such as standards and labelling, to ensure international waste trade flows was also be discussed. In 2020, the OECD organised a multi-stakeholder workshop on international trade and circular economies which gathered experts from OECD and non-OECD countries, inter-governmental organisations, the private sector and civil society. The workshop examined the interlinkages between trade and circular economies, notably the impact on supply-chains and trade, waste trade and trade in goods for refurbishment and remanufacturing, and second-hand goods. It explored a forward looking “mutually supportive agenda” covering standards, innovation and international co-operation. Its four key messages were: l The circular economy transition will likely impact
supply chains and trade including those for primary raw materials; the impact of the circular economy transition therefore needs to be considered for sectors such as extractive industries; l Waste can be traded as a valuable resource and waste
trade can create economies of scale, improving the use of waste and recyclables. Environmentally sound management at destination is nevertheless essential. Illegal waste trade needs to be tackled at national and international levels; l There are important differences on how trade can
contribute to circular economies when considering heavy industry versus fast-moving consumer goods;
The detailed findings from this workshop are being prepared as a workshop summary (OECD, 2020[67]). These findings are currently feeding into a detailed report on trade and circular economy policy alignment (Yamaguchi, 2020[68]). A 2020 OECD study focusing on circular economies and trade in metals and minerals emphasised the importance of metallic waste and scrap in global trade in waste and scrap, accounting for 80% of its value and over half its volume (Korinek, 2020[69]). It also pointed to their high economically viable recycling potential. It found that trade policies can promote greater resource efficiency and circularity by enabling economies of scale in recycling, ensuring regulatory coherence between different waste frameworks, and tackling problems of exports to countries with inadequate recycling facilities. Export restrictions, affecting 40% of traded copper waste and scrap, 30% of aluminium, and 20% of iron and steel waste and scrap, can negatively impact trade in waste and scrap. Meant to safeguard domestic supply, they can provide a disincentive for further collection of end-of-life products by lowering prices for domestic downstream users. Concerns about exports of waste and scrap, including e-waste from discarded end-of-life electric and electronic products, to countries that do not have adequate recycling facilities could be addressed through strengthened international cooperation.
TRADE AND BIODIVERSITY Most of the JWPTE’s initial work on the topic of trade and biodiversity focused on the use of trade measures in MEAs, with three case studies in the late 1990s covering CITES, the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer and the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal. The last decade has seen a renewed interest in trade and biodiversity issues within the context of illegal trade in environmentally sensitive goods, with three areas relating to biodiversity generally considered to be of major importance: illegal trade in certain species of wildlife; illegal logging and its associated timber trade; and IUU fishing.
l Securing both environmentally sustainable supply
chains and end-of-life value chains is critical in a mutually supportive trade and circular economy
Starting in 2009, the JWPTE undertook a pluriannual work programme devoted to trade in environmentally
48 . OECD WORK ON TRADE AND THE ENVIRONMENT: A RETROSPECTIVE, 2008-2020
