In 2008 and 2011, the OECD carried out large-scale household surveys that explore what drives household environmental behaviour and how policies may affect household decisions. The surveys focused on five areas in which households have significant environmental impact: energy, food, transport, waste and water.

In addressing the interaction between micro-level behaviour and environmental policies across multiple environmental domains and countries, the EPIC surveys generate datasets that are unique in terms of their geographical coverage and environmental scope. Previous surveys have yielded a number of policy-relevant findings that have been discussed in numerous publications and working papers.

In 2022, the OECD will implement a third round of the EPIC Survey.

The current environmental, economic, and political context differs in important ways from that of 2011, and these differences are highly relevant for environmental policy. First public awareness of environmental issues has evolved. While progress has varied across time and countries, environmental issues have generally risen in prominence on the global and national agendas an in the public consciousness. The signing of the Paris Agreement has signalled increasing political will to mitigate climate change, and global climate strikes have illustrated the extent to which the public is increasingly galvanised to address environmental issues. Rising economic inequality has contributed to increasingly widespread concern about distributional issues, which have proven highly relevant to the public’s receptivity to environmental policies such as fuel taxes.

Technological and organisational innovations have also altered the landscape of possible action that individuals can take in many domains. Particularly drastic changes have occurred in transport systems in recent years, ushered in by developments such as the spread of ride-sourcing and shared forms of micro-mobility (e.g. electric scooters), as well as the increased penetration of EVs. Consumer options have also changed in the domains of waste (e.g. the availability of no-sort recycling options and volume- or weight-based disposal fees), and energy (e.g. increasingly renewable electricity mixes and the increasing use of smart meter technology, household appliance efficiency and distributed household level energy generation). Policy priorities of many governments have also evolved in the last decade. Resource efficiency and the transition to a circular economy has also climbed rapidly to the top of environmental agendas of developed and developing countries. The implications of the Covid-19 crisis for environmental behaviours and attendant policy responses will also be explored.

GREENING HOUSEHOLD BEHAVIOUR

Answering these questions is vital for helping governments design and target policies that promote "greener" behaviour. The OECD’s Environmental Policy and Individual Behaviour Change (EPIC) survey is designed to do just that. This large-scale household survey explores what drives household environmental behaviour and how policies may affect household decisions. It focuses on five areas in which households have significant environmental impact: energy, food, transport, waste and water.

This policy paper is based on the second round of the EPIC survey, carried out in 2011 (the first was in 2008). The survey collected information from more than 12 000 households in Australia, Canada, Chile, France, Israel, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

ENERGY

FOOD

TRANSPORT

WASTE

WATER