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Peer reviews are a standard co-operative OECD working tool that offer member countries a framework to compare experiences and examine best practices in a host of areas. The OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) has developed a proven methodology for conducting peer reviews in radioactive waste management and nuclear R&D. Using this methodology, the NEA Radioactive Waste Management Committee’s Working Party on Decommissioning and Dismantling (WPDD) developed the present guide as a framework for decommissioning cost reviewers and reviewees to prepare for and conduct international peer reviews of decommissioning cost estimate studies for nuclear facilities. It includes checklists that will help national programmes or relevant organisations to assess and improve decommissioning cost estimate practices in the future. This guide will act as the NEA reference for conducting such international peer reviews.

The Guidance is intended to offer host governments the tools they need to assemble and manage a multidisciplinary team, and engage effectively in extractive contract negotiations. The Guidance aims to help governments to put in place recommended processes and identify the skills that governments may need to prepare for and conduct effective contract negotiations. This Guidance further suggests ways to ensure coordination within government and better integration between government officials and expert advisers. Annexed to this Guidance is a Terms of Reference Template that governments may use to recruit and to monitor external advisers engaged during extractive contract negotiations. The Template can also be utilised by support providers who recruit external advisers on behalf of governments for the same purpose. While recognising that human and institutional capacity building is a long-term endeavour, the Guidance suggests, wherever possible, practical ways to capture and retain the necessary soft and technical skills for successful negotiations.

The peer review process can lead to changes in the interpretation of the slides and the reported results, and potentially the outcome and conclusions of the study. The purpose of this document is to provide guidance to pathologists, test facility management, study directors and quality assurance personnel on how the peer review of histopathology should be planned, managed, documented and reported in order to meet GLP expectations and requirements. This document is a complement to the guidance provided in section 3.6.3.7 of OECD Guidance Document 116 (series on testing and assessment), whose focus is on how histopathology peer review should be conducted.

This document contains revised standards for transfer pricing documentation and a template for country-by-country reporting of revenues, profits, taxes paid and certain measures of economic activity. These new reporting provisions, and the transparency they will encourage, will contribute to the objective of understanding, controlling, and tackling BEPS behaviours. Countries participating in the BEPS project will carefully review the implementation of these new standards and will reassess no later than the end of 2020 whether modifications should be made to require reporting of additional or different data. Effective implementation of the new reporting standards and reporting rules will be essential. Additional work will be undertaken to identify the most appropriate means of filing the required information with and disseminating it to tax administrations.

This document contains revisions to the OECD Transfer Pricing Guidelines to align transfer pricing outcomes with value creation in the area of intangibles. The changes clarify the definition of intangibles and provide guidance for related parties; including transactions involving intangibles and the transfer pricing treatment of local market features and corporate synergies. Some transfer pricing issues relating to intangibles are closely related to other issues that are to be addressed during 2015, most notably in relation to the allocation of risk among MNE group members and recharacterisation of transactions. Because of those interactions some sections of this document are in intermediate form and will be finalised in 2015.

This publication offers a general introduction to sustainability impact assessment, which is an approach for exploring the combined economic, environmental and social impacts of a range of proposed policies, programmes, strategies and action plans. Such assessments can also assist decision-making and strategic planning throughout the entire policy cycles. It is not an in-depth or detailed user manual, but rather outlines basic principles and process steps of sustainability impact assessments, drawing on examples from Switzerland, Belgium and the European Commission, among others. This publication is a valuable source of information for policy makers on sustainability impact assessments.

In this document a strategy is presented to facilitate the ecological risk assessment of organometallic compounds (OM) and organic metal salts (OMS), outlining key steps that are based on elucidation of the fate of these substances in the environment. This document puts forth the recommendation that the initial determination of their fate in the environment is a primary factor for deciding how these substances should be assessed recognising that regulatory and program requirements will vary with each jurisdiction.

The purpose of this guidance was primarily to assist sponsors as they conduct testing in support of the WPMN exploratory program. It therefore focuses on the kinds of tests that address the endpoints and the types of nanomaterials being tested under the sponsorship programme. It is recognised, however, that due to the wide variety of nanomaterials, it is difficult to develop advice applicable to all nanomaterials; accordingly, the performer of a study will have to exert some judgment on a case-by-case basis on the applicability of the recommendations given in this guidance to their particular material.

The efficacy and functionality of a biocides treated article as well as the way the treated article and its benefits for the user are presented (the claim) have a public health impact. The OECD identified a public health concern, in particular because of a possible false sense of security given by the claim, or because of an incorrect interpretation of the claim by the end-users. The objective of this document is to give guidance on how claims for treated articles that may have an impact on human health can be formulated, interpreted and tested within the framework of the different legislations across OECD countries.

As the demand for safer chemicals and technologies grows, the field of alternatives assessment is becoming increasingly important in guiding the transition towards safer, less toxic alternatives. While the use and practice of alternatives assessment approaches have advanced considerably in the last decade, important gaps in alternatives assessment approaches remain. A major limitation that can hinder efforts to evaluate and adopt alternatives for priority chemicals is the lack of consistent criteria for defining “safer.” Practitioners face challenges on what constitutes “safer” when evaluating alternatives from both a hazard and exposure perspective. This guidance aims to identify and outline key considerations for the identification and selection of safer alternatives. It is intended to advance a consistent understanding of the minimum requirements needed to determine whether a chemical alternative is safer than the priority chemical, product, or technology for substitution, independent of the entity performing the assessment or the alternatives assessment framework being used.

This guidance document is part of the OECD effort to provide guidance for assessing the hazards of chemical substances while gaining efficiencies and improving animal welfare. The approach described in this guidance document is to consider closely related chemicals as a group, or category, rather than as individual chemicals. In the category approach, not every chemical needs to be tested for every endpoint. Rather, the overall data for that category must prove adequate to support a hazard assessment. The overall data set must allow the estimation of the hazard for the untested endpoints.
 

This Document was designed to serve as a tool to assist industrial enterprises, public authorities, and communities near hazardous installations world-wide develop and implement a means to assess the success of their chemical safety activities. The guidance does not define a precise methodology, but rather provides guidance on how to develop and use safety performance indicators including the general elements of Safety Performance Indicators (SPI) Programmes.
 

This Guidance on Developing Safety Performance Indicators (“Guidance on SPI”) was prepared to assist enterprises that wish to implement and/or review Safety Performance Indicator Programmes. The three chapters in this Guidance are designed to help enterprises better understand safety performance indicators, and how to implement SPI Programmes. Specifically, Chapter 1 provides important background information on the Guidance and on SPIs more generally including (i) a description of the target audience for this Guidance, (ii) defi nitions of SPIs and related terms, and (iii) insights on the reasons for implementing an SPI Programme. Chapter 2 sets out a seven-step process for implementing an SPI Programme, along with three examples of how different types of enterprises might approach the establishment of such a Programme. These seven steps build on the experience of a number of enterprises in the UK that worked with the Health and Safety Executive to develop a practical approach for applying performance indicators. Chapter 3 provides additional support for the development of an SPI Programme by setting out a menu of possible elements (targets, outcome indicators and activities indicators). This menu is extensive in light of the different types of potentially interested enterprises, recognising that each enterprise will likely choose only a limited number of the elements to monitor its key areas of concern. Furthermore, it is understood that an enterprise may decide to implement an SPI Programme in steps, focusing fi rst on only a few priority areas, and then expanding and amending its Programme as experience is gained. Annexes provide further support with an expanded explanation of metrics and a summary of targets, along with a glossary, a list of selected references and a copy of the Guiding Principles’ “Golden Rules.”

Ownership change potentially affects key elements of safety management and can lead to a change in the management of the risks at a facility, either positively or negatively. Stakeholders involved in an ownership change should be aware of the hazards that those facilities are capable of posing, and understand that these hazards can lead to accidents with effects that extend far beyond their boundaries potentially affecting the public and the surrounding environment. They should also understand the responsibility they have for preventing such accidents and mitigating their consequences. Before, during and after the transaction the management of safety should be a priority for all.

This book describes the Canary Islands, Spain school system and sheds light on PISA results for the Canary Islands. It includes analyses of the policy implications in the domains of system management and resource distribution, students and learning, teachers and teaching, and school leadership and inspections. The report also provides recommendations for raising quality and equity in learning outcomes.

This document suggests elements and/or concepts that can contribute to a useful report of a Good Laboratory Practice inspection and study audit. It may be used by Member countries as a component of their compliance monitoring programme.

The objective of this document is to provide guidance on how to derive an Acute Reference Dose (ARfD). It outlines a stepwise approach on how to best use all available toxicological data, and what to do if more data are needed on the refinement of the toxicological data base with regard to the acute effects of the compound being investigated or an advanced exposure assessment, if the risk assessment indicates a human health concern. This guidance document is primarily intended for pesticides, biocides and veterinary drugs, but could be used for all categories of chemical substances which may be ingested by human beings in food and/or drinking water as well as non-dietary oral exposure. The general principles and concepts can also be applied to dermal and inhalation exposure routes. However, these routes would more appropriately be addressed in separate OECD guidance documents.