To a large extent, environmental macroeconomics is developing outside of the theoretical debates taking place in other fields of research in applied macroeconomics. This is evidenced by the low representation of environmental issues in mainstream economics journals and in advanced macroeconomics textbooks. While the environment has not up to now been considered as a subject in itself for advancing knowledge in macroeconomics, since the 1990s it has at least been an important topic for applying macroeconomic models. These models have been used in particular to analyse and quantify the economic effects of the transition to a sustainable system of production and consumption. We propose to shed light on the state of the art in applied environmental macroeconomics. More specifically, we will endeavour to identify the specific features of this area of research that explain the theoretical and empirical choices made.