Households and the Environment Survey (HES)
Detailed information for 2023
Status:
Active
Frequency:
Every 2 years
Record number:
3881
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.
Data release - June 9, 2025
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 quality of drinking water, the impact of residential pesticide use and the impact of hazardous waste on human health are only some of the newer issues that have moved to the forefront of Canadians' collective consciousness. Changes in environmental practices and behaviours are reflective of these growing concerns. In order 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 2023 HES.
- Home heating and cooling
- Use of firewood
- 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
- Purchasing decisions
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 2023 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 2023, the total sample size for HES was 64,800 households, split evenly between the two flows.
Data sources
Data collection for this reference period: 2024-06-20 to 2024-10-09
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) .
Error detection
The first stage of survey processing undertaken at head office was the replacement of any "out of-range" values on the data file with blanks. This process was designed to make further editing easier.
The first type of error treated was errors in questionnaire flow, where questions that did not apply to the respondent (and should therefore not have been answered) were found to contain answers. In this case a computer edit automatically eliminated superfluous data by following the flow of the questionnaire implied by answers to previous, and in some cases, subsequent questions.
The second type of error treated involved a lack of information in questions that should have been answered. For this type of error, a non-response or "not-stated" code was assigned to the item.
This was followed by a series of edits to ensure consistency in the responses for a household.
Imputation
In most cases, item non-response to the survey occurred when the respondent did not understand or misinterpreted a question, refused to answer a question, or could not recall the requested information. Values were not imputed when these were missing. They were coded to "not-stated".
Total household income was imputed in the cases of non-response using the nearest neighbour imputation method with matching variables such as province, dwelling type and home ownership.
Partial non-response occurs when the interview is started but not completed for various reasons. In the case of the HES, less than 1% of interviews were started but not completed and the missed questions were treated as multiple item non-response and coded to "not-stated".
Estimation
The HES is a probability survey. As is the case with any probability survey, the sample was selected so as to be able to produce estimates for a reference population. Therefore, each unit in the sample represents a certain number of units in the population in addition to themselves. This number is referred to as the survey weight.
Whitin each high-level flow pattern, this weighting strategy was applied:
1) Each selected dwelling is given an initial weight equal to the inverse of its selection probability from the sampling frame. Dwellings identified as out-of-scope during collection are dropped from the sample.
2) The weights for responding households are adjusted to represent the households that did not respond. This ensures population totals are not underestimated. The method of response homogeneous groups (RHG) was used which involves grouping together units with the same likelihood of response. Then, an adjustment factor is computed for each RHG.
3) The household weights are calibrated so that the sum of the weights matches provincial-level household size demographic counts.
To estimate variances directly, one set of 1,000 bootstrap weights was also created and made available in a separate file.
The Generalized Estimation System was used to generate the survey weights and bootstrap weights.
Quality evaluation
All published data were compared to identical or similar HES data from previous surveys to ensure consistency. Explanations were found for any significant changes. Subject-matter experts confronted the data using other sources as well as by identifying and researching any values that were not consistent with others in the same domain.
Disclosure control
Statistics Canada is prohibited by law from releasing any information it collects that could identify any person, business, or organization, unless consent has been given by the respondent or as permitted by the Statistics Act. Various confidentiality rules are applied to all data that are released or published to prevent the publication or disclosure of any information deemed confidential. If necessary, data are suppressed to prevent direct or residual disclosure of identifiable data.
Revisions and seasonal adjustment
This methodology type does not apply to this statistical program.
Data accuracy
Response rates
The HES response rate is the number of HES responding households as a percentage of the number of households included in the initial sample, adjusted to account for out-of-scope units. The following table presents the 2023 HES response rates by province, for each high-level pattern separately as well as for the combined patterns.
Province : Combined : High-level pattern 1 : High-level pattern 2
All: 46.2 : 45.6 : 46.7
Newfoundland and Labrador: 37.0 : 37.7 : 36.2
Prince Edward Island: 38.6: 38.3: 38.9
Nova Scotia: 49.0 : 46.2: 51.7
New Brunswick: 44.7 : 44.4 : 45.0
Quebec: 51.0 : 50.2 : 51.8
Ontario: 47.5 : 46.9 : 48.1
Manitoba: 44.9 : 45.2 : 44.6
Saskatchewan: 43.2 : 44.8 : 41.6
Alberta: 44.6 : 43.6 : 45.6
Bristish Columbia: 46.0 : 45.1: 47.0
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