First, the good news: most Canadian households are actively working to improve the environment by recycling, using energy-efficient building materials, and turning down their thermostats. The bad news: despite improvements in energy use and energy-efficient home building, household greenhouse gas emissions increased 13 per cent between 1990 and 2004.

The mixed results come from two Statistics Canada studies published recently in the agency"s EnviroStats publication.

The first study looked at whether households were active in six "environmental behaviours" – recycling; composting; lowering the temperature in the home in winter; and using reduced volume toilets, low-flow showerheads, or compact fluorescent light bulbs. A household was classified as "very active" if it practiced four to six of the behaviours; "moderately active" if it did two or three of behaviours; and "less active" if it did none or one of the items on the list.

Forty-five per cent of Canadian households got top marks as very active, 45 per cent were moderately active, and only 10 per cent were less active.

Homeowners were more likely to be active than renters, and were three times as likely to be very active than were renters. The report notes that renters may have less freedom to change fixtures such as toilets and showerheads. Apartment dwellers were also less likely than those who don"t live in an apartment to be very active for the same reason, and also because many apartment buildings did not have recycling or composting facilities in place when the survey was conducted.

Researcher Avani Babooram also looked at whether income and education made a difference in environmental behaviour. "The higher the income bracket, the higher the proportion of very active households," says the report. "Sixty per cent of households with incomes greater than $100,000 were very active, compared to 35 per cent of households with incomes of $28,000 or less."

But the report notes that "while income was associated with a household practicing four or more environmental behaviours, increasing income did not increase the odds of being very active as much as home ownership."

The proportion of households that were very active also rose with increased education. Half of households where at least one member had completed university were very active, compared to 34 per cent of households where no one had completed high school.

Prince Edward Island wins the prize for the most environmentally active province, with 64 per cent of its households participating in four or more activities. That was almost twice the rate of very active participants in Quebec and Manitoba, the provinces with the lowest rates of active participants.

Recycling is the most popular of the behaviours, with an impressive 97 per cent of Canadian households participating. Next came the use of CFL bulbs (59 per cent) followed by low-flow shower heads (56 per cent), lowering temperatures (54 per cent), reduced volume toilets (37 per cent) and composting (30 per cent). These particular behaviours were chosen for the study because they are accessible to a wide range of the population and because they represent a variety of environmental issues, says Statistics Canada.

The study of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), by Alison Clark Milito and Gabriel Gagnon, looked at direct household emissions (used when people drive their vehicles for personal use and use fossil fuels to heat their homes) and indirect emissions (produced by industries to make the goods and services people purchase for household use). Together, these emissions accounted for 46 per cent of Canada"s total GHG in 2004.

"The use of motor fuels is the largest source of direct emissions attributable to the households," says the study. "The increase in emissions associated with motor fuel use outpaced the 16 per cent growth in population (between 1990 and 2004), reflecting the increased popularity of larger motor vehicles that require more fuel per kilometer driven. Sales of trucks increased 74 per cent from 1990 to 2004."

The reduced use of heating oil, combined with the introduction of more energy efficient HVAC units, helped offset increased GHG emissions caused by the growing number of houses. Emissions from household fuel use were fairly stable during the time period measured.

Almost two-thirds of the total household GHG comes from indirect emissions, says the report. "Goods and services that resulted in the highest indirect GHG emissions in 2004 were electricity; food and non-alcoholic beverages; restaurant meals and accommodations; and motor fuels and lubricants," says the report.

"Electricity represents 42 per cent of total energy used in the home, but greenhouse gases are not directly emitted when households turn on their lights," say the report authors. "However, greenhouse gases are emitted when electricity is generated using fossil fuels….The electric power industry is the top greenhouse gas emitter in Canada."

Canada"s third-place ranking in per capita GHG emissions puts it behind the United Kingdom and Germany, and ahead of the United States, France, Italy, the Russian Federation and Japan.

Published: December 23, 2008

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Jim Adair is editor of REM: Canada's Real Estate Magazine, a business publication for real estate agents and brokers. He has been writing about Canadian real estate, home building and renovation issues for more than 30 years. You can contact Jim at .