Environmental country reviews

On average, between three and five reviews are published per year. The reviews of Chile, the Slovak Republic and Egypt were published in 2024.

The reviews of Japan and Sweden are planned for release in 2025.

The share of municipal solid waste landfilled in the OECD area has decreased from an estimated 53% since 2000, with some countries no longer using landfills (Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Japan). Yet landfilling remains the main waste disposal method in several countries (e.g. in the OECD America region).

The recovery of waste through recycling, composting and incineration with energy recovery shows an encouraging increase since 2000 across the OECD area. Several countries now recycle more than one third of the municipal waste they manage (Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Korea, Latvia, Slovenia).

Find more core environmental indicators on Environment at a Glance.

Overall, the share of environmentally related tax revenue (ERTR) continues to decline in OECD countries and has decreased, down from 5.9% in the early 2000s. The decreasing trend is a combination of factors, namely, that tax rates are typically defined in physical units (e.g. per litre) and hence are set in nominal terms. Without inflation adjustment, these rates decrease in real terms over time. While countries such as Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden have implemented such adjustments, most OECD countries do not yet apply inflation adjustments to environmentally related taxes. Another factor contributing to this trend is the increase in crude oil prices up until mid-2014, which triggered substitution away from motor fuel use, also making adjustments in nominal tax rates on motor fuels politically difficult. Yet some countries, such as Slovenia, Costa Rica, Turkey and Estonia strengthened the role of environmentally related taxes and have tripled their share of tax revenue since 2000.