The OECD environment directorate: the art of persuasion and its limitations

The secretariat of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which is the intergovernmental bureaucracy that supports the OECD countries, was the first secretariat to have a separate environmental division, the environment directorate which started its operations in 1971. This chapter examines the autonomous influence of the environment directorate in environmental governance. After outlining the OECD environment directorate’s structure and activities, the chapter explores its cognitive, normative, and executive influences, and then shows that knowledge, ideas, concepts, and arguments are essentially the only resources of the OECD secretariat and its environment directorate. It also discusses the autonomy, competences, and embeddedness of the environment directorate, along with its organizational expertise, organizational culture, organizational structure, and organizational leadership.