Household Consumption

Objectives

Environmental pressures from households are significant and their impacts are likely to intensify over the coming years. The project on Household Behaviour and Environmental Policy initiated by the Environment Directorate aims at better understanding household consumption patterns and household responses to environmental policies in order to provide guidance to policy-makers.

Main phases

As part of the first step of the project, existing empirical evidence on the main drivers of household behaviour in these five environmental policy areas was reviewed. The results of this work were presented at a Workshop on held 15-16 June 2006, at OECD Headquarters, Paris. A publication presenting the outcome of the workshop is available (Household Behaviour and the Environment).

The second stage involved the implementation of an OECD household survey on environmental behaviour in five key policy areas (energy, waste, food, water and personal transport) and ten countries: Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Italy, Korea, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.

The results of the 2008 survey were presented at an international OECD conference (3-4 June 2009) and a publication is forthcoming. As a follow-up step, a new OECD Survey will be carried out in 2010, with a particular focus on the adoption of eco-innovations by households, and the development of a low-carbon economy.

Timeline

• Pre-testing of the survey in selected countries (2007). [Completed]
• Implementation of the OECD Household Survey on Environmental Behaviour in all 10 countries, with a total sample of 10 000 respondents (January-March 2008). [Completed]
• Analysis of the Survey data by research teams coordinated by the OECD. Households’ response to various types of environmental policies are examined (e.g. waste charges, waste recycling services, energy price, energy efficiency labelling, fuel taxes, organic food labelling). Differences in environmental behaviour across households groups (e.g. income, age, household size, education) are analysed as well. Thematic reports will be prepared by research teams based upon the results (2008-2009).
• Presentation of the project results at an international OECD conference (3-4 June 2009) and publication of the conclusions of the Survey.
• Next round of the OECD Survey (2010).

Research Teams taking part in the OECD project

The project is coordinated by the OECD Environment Directorate, with research teams with extensive experience based in selected participating countries. These include:

• Catholic University, Piacenza – Italy:
  Stefano BOCCALETTI (research team leader) – Organic Food
• Charles University in Prague – Czech Republic:
  Milan SCASNY (research team leader) – Energy Efficiency
• Korean Environment Institute (KEI) – Korea:
  Kwang-yim KIM (research team leader) – Waste Generation
• SLU University – Sweden:
  Bengt KRISTRÖM (research team leader) – Renewable Energy
• Statistics Norway - Norway:
  Bente HALVORSEN (research team leader) – Gender Issues
• The Australian National University – Australia:
  Quentin GRAFTON (research team leader) – Water Consumption
• Universitad Ibericoamericana – Mexico:
  Alejandro GUEVARA-SANGINES (research team leader) - Transport
• University Panthéon-Sorbonne and INRA – France:
  Katrin MILLOCK and Céline NAUGES (research team leaders) – Water Conservation and Water Quality
• York University – Canada:
  Ida FERRARA (research team leader) – Waste Recycling and Waste Prevention

Advisory Committee

In order to ensure the soundness of the survey instrument and the political relevance of the outcome of the work, an Advisory Committee including government representatives from the participating countries was set up in 2007 to help inform this project. The Second Meeting of the Advisory Committee was held September 17th, at OECD Headquarter, in Paris.

Contacts

Ysé Serret-Itzicsohn (Project Manager)
OECD Environment Directorate
Email: Yse.Serret@oecd.org

Previous work of the Environment Directorate on Household Consumption

This new project builds on previous OECD work on sustainable consumption developed since 1994. The activity was initiated with a comprehensive programme combining the development of a conceptual framework for the analysis of the effects of household consumption on the environment, sector case studies documenting trends, environmental impacts, and policy response in five areas of household consumption (food, tourism-related travel, energy, water and waste generation), and policy recommendations to influence household consumption. The results of this work were released as a publication"Towards Sustainable Household Consumption? Trends and Policies in OECD Countries" and a series of free documents.

In addition, work focussing on energy-consuming consumer durables such as motor vehicles or household appliances was undertaken addressing key issues to reduce impacts from durable design, production, use and disposal. A report on the environmental and policy implications of household decisions with respect to consumer durable purchases is available. This reviews some of the challenges facing policy makers as they seek to design environmentally effective and economically efficient environmental policies in this area.