Pd/ZnO has been shown in recent years to possess high selectivity towards CO2 during methanol steam reforming. It is commonly assumed that PdZn alloy formation is essential to achieve high selectivity towards CO2. In this work, we have used alternative activation treatments in order to vary independently the particle size and extent of alloy formation. We used XRD and TEM to obtain estimates of average crystallite size and composition. The results show that the presence of monometallic Pd is not detrimental to the catalyst selectivity towards CO2. We also show that the ZnO morphology greatly affects methanol conversion which suggests that ZnO plays a major role in the steam reforming of methanol reaction.