Work on consumption, production and the environment at the OECD is largely empirical in nature. The effects of the public policy framework on firms, households and the public sector are analysed.

There has been a long-standing project at the Environment Directorate on the impacts of household consumption on the environment, and the design of environmental policy targeted at households. A project examines the effect of environmental policy on household behaviour in five key areas: energy use, waste, transport, food and water. Policy recommendations are drawn from a unique comparative study implemented in 10 OECD countries across the five environmental issues addressed.

In the public sector, work is being undertaken on how national governments and other public authorities can generate both direct and indirect environmental benefits through greener public purchasing programmes and other initiatives. Particular attention is currently being paid to financial, budgeting and accounting issues, and a book on this subject has just been released.

Work is also being done on links between environmental policy design and corporate behaviour and organisational issues. This involves the analysis of a large international survey of firms. Initial outputs include descriptive overviews of the data for France, Japan, Germany, Norway, Hungary, Canada and the US. Also, a project on the links between environmental policy and technological innovation is being undertaken.  Drawing upon the OECD Triadic Patent Family database, the project involves empirical analysis of the relationship between environmental policy design and patent counts.