"During the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries were quick to commit to a “green recovery” through the stimulus packages they were preparing. As the unprecedented scale of rescue and recovery spending has unfolded, it has become increasingly difficult to determine what the likely environmental impact of those packages will be. To shed light on this, the OECD has developed a Green Recovery Database that tracks COVID-19 recovery measures with likely environmental implications, positively or negatively, across 43 countries. The results, which countries have had the opportunity to review, show that while USD 336 billion has been allocated towards environmentally positive measures, this is currently evenly matched by spending on measures categorised as having mixed or negative environmental impacts. Furthermore, the spending allocated to green measures represents only around 17% of recovery spending (or 2% of total COVID-19-related spending) announced by governments. The small proportion accounted for by green measures implies that, overall, recovery packages are not currently set to deliver the transformational investments needed. Given these findings, this policy brief concludes with policy steps governments can take to ensure that recovery packages are better aligned with environmental goals."

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