The OECD Environmental Data Compendium, published every two years, presents data linking pollution and natural resources with economic activity placing pressures on the environment. It provides data on the state of air and climate, inland waters, land, forests, wildlife, waste, and risks as well as data on pressures on the environment made by energy production and consumption, transport, industry, and agriculture. Data are provided for OECD countries for recent years for which data is available.

The book closes with information on selected responses by government and enterprises, including data on environmental expenditure and taxes, multilateral agreements, and general information on population and population density, trends in and structure of GDP, and structure of household consumption expenditure. 

The 2004 edition includes, for the first time, StatLinks for each table and graph. StatLinks are URLs which the reader can use to access spreadsheet files of the underlying data, and in this book, are provided at the beginning of each chapter.