Household choices – such as what to eat, how to get to work and how to heat our homes – have significant implications for the environment. With the urgency of environmental action and the need to shift to more sustainable consumption patterns, making more sustainable choices holds great potential to reduce environmental impacts. Yet in the context of interlocking crises, governments face challenges in supporting households with policies that realise this potential.

How Green is Household Behaviour? presents an overview of results from the 2022 OECD Survey on Environmental Policies and Individual Behaviour Change. The survey investigates household attitudes and behaviour with respect to energy, transport, waste and food systems. It was carried out across more than 17 000 households in 9 countries, including Belgium, Canada, Israel, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. The data collected also include information on self-reported motivations and barriers to change, providing a unique source of empirical evidence to inform policy efforts to shift to more sustainable consumption patterns.