Households and the Environment Survey (HES)

Detailed information for 2025

The Households and the Environment Survey (HES) measures the environmental practices and behaviours of Canadian households that relate to the condition of our air, water and soils.

• Questionnaire(s) and reporting guide(s)
• Description
• Data sources and methodology

Description

The objective of the survey is to provide context to scientific measures of air and water quality, and greenhouse gas emissions, by gaining a better understanding of household behaviour and practices with respect to the environment.

Since the HES was first conducted in 1991, environmental priorities and concerns have changed for Canadians. The impact of climate change and extreme weather events, energy and water conservation, and the uptake of technologies such as heat pumps and electric vehicles are only some of the issues that have moved to the forefront of Canadians' collective consciousness in recent years. Changes in environmental practices and behaviours are reflective of these growing concerns. To gauge these changes, the HES measures key environmental variables and practices. The survey ran in 1991, 1994, 2006, and every two years starting with 2007. Below is a list of topics that are covered in the 2025 HES.

- Home heating and cooling
- Use of wood and wood pellets
- Dwelling characteristics and appliances
- Water quality concerns of households
- Consumption and conservation of water
- Consumption and conservation of energy
- Pesticide and fertilizer use on lawns and gardens
- Use of household lawn and garden equipment
- Use of gasoline-powered recreation equipment
- Awareness of and testing for radon
- Composting practices
- Household hazardous waste disposal practices, including electronic waste
- Household interactions with nature
- Impact of extreme weather events
- Emergency preparedness
- Purchasing decisions
- Vehicle use

Statistical activity

The Canadian System of Environmental-Economic Accounts provides a conceptually integrated framework of statistics (in physical and monetary terms) and analysis for studying the relationship between the environment and human and economic activity. It presents detailed statistics describing 1) the size of Canada's natural resource stocks and their contribution to national wealth; 2) the extraction of these same resources and their disposition among businesses, households, governments and the rest of the world; 3) the generation of various wastes (liquid, solid and gaseous) by industries, households and governments and the management of these wastes; and 4) the expenditures made by businesses, households and governments for the purposes of protecting the environment. The accounts are, to the greatest extent possible, compatible with the Canadian System of Macroeconomic Accounts (CSMA). They were developed in response to the need to better monitor the relationship between economic activity and the environment.

Reference period: The calendar year corresponding to the reference year.

Subjects

• Energy
• Environment
• Families, households and housing

Data sources and methodology

Target population

The target population of the 2025 HES consisted of households in the ten provinces in Canada. Households excluded from the survey are those located in Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut; households located on reserves and in other Indigenous settlements in the provinces; households located on Canadian Forces bases, institutions and collectives.

Instrument design

The questionnaires were designed by Statistics Canada in consultation with stakeholders involved in the Canadian Environment Sustainability Indicators project and in consideration of the data needs of both the project and the larger research and policy communities.

The questionnaire was designed to follow standard practices and wording, when applicable, in both self-administered electronic questionnaires and a computer-assisted interviewing environment. This included the automatic control of question wording and flows that depended upon answers to earlier questions and the use of online edits to check for logical inconsistencies and gross capture errors.

Two high-level flow patterns were incorporated into the questionnaire so that respondents could be administered questions related to the dwelling characteristics, or questions related to their environmental practices.

The survey instrument used for data collection was subjected to extensive testing before its use in the survey.

Sampling

This is a sample survey with a cross-sectional design.

The sampling unit for the HES is the dwelling. The frame, created from the Statistical Building Register (SBgR), was stratified by province, and a simple random sample of dwellings was selected within each province. One sample was drawn for each of the two high-level flows mentioned above. Sufficient sample was allocated to each of the provinces so that the survey could produce provincial level estimates, by high-level flow. In 2025, the total sample size for HES was 64,800 households, split evenly between the two flows.

Data sources

Data collection for this reference period: 2026-01-02 to 2026-05-02

Responding to this survey is voluntary.

Data are collected directly from a representative of the selected household.

The HES is conducted using a combination of self-administered electronic questionnaires and telephone interviews by Statistics Canada's regional offices using a computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) application.

View the Questionnaire(s) and reporting guide(s) .