A proper analysis (an evaluation) of the environmental load of consumption is important in the context of sustainable development. Presently, different methods are used to calculate the environmental load of household consumption, mainly in energy and or greenhouse gas emission terms. These methods are all based on input-output energy analysis, but use different data sources and produce different results. In this article, we discern and describe three methods used to calculate the total energy requirements of households, and we discuss the main results produced with these methods. All three methods are applied to the Netherlands in order to compare differences and similarities in the results. We found that the total energy requirement calculated with all three methods was almost the same, with differences less than 4%, however each method provides results at a different level. Basic energy input-output analysis generates total requirements and requirements per consumption category, and is therefore suitable for describing and explaining the effect of household consumption. The hybrid method combining energy input-output analysis with process analysis generates requirements per consumption item and therefore offers opportunities to search for options of change of household consumption patterns to more sustainable consumption. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.