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Transport / commuting

Working from Home (Online Management Solutions)

Objectives

Green Value indicator

Explanation

Remote work, home office, work from home, telework are some of the terms used to describe settings where workers are not physically present in the office of their employer or the purchaser of their services. The concept mainly works for jobs and tasks that involve a large amount of screen work. The advancement of digitalisation, the COVID-19 pandemic and the shift to a more knowledge-based economy in many countries have made the option of remote work more realistic for employers and employees. For example, roughly half of all jobs could be done in a remote setting in the United States (McKinsey & Company, 2020).

Remote work sounds great, but is it sustainable and/or good for the environment? There are some reasons why remote work is considered harmful for the environment: Office buildings are designed to utilise energy better than homes. Therefore, gathering everybody into a heated or cooled building uses less energy than each worker heating or cooling their individual home. Additionally, materials and transport to ship supplies or equipment to remote workers burn environmental resources and people working from home might need to travel more to have in-person meetings or to see clients. Furthermore, the energy and bandwidth project managers use on things like video calls translate to CO2 emissions, meaning that computer and internet usage aren’t without consequences.

One very recent study conducted in the U.S. found an increase in residential electricity consumption, while industrial and commercial consumption has fallen during the Covid-19 pandemic in the United States. The 16% residential increase during work hours offsets the declines from commercial and industrial customers (Cicala, 2020). The increase in residential consumption is found to be positively associated with the share of the labour force that may work from home. From April through July of 2020, total excess expenditure on residential electricity was nearly $6B (Cicala, 2020).
On the other hand, there are some arguments that remote work can benefit the environment: Commuting is reduced or eliminated for remote workers (decreasing emissions 39.5%) (NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH, 2021). This saves on the fuel or electricity your vehicle needed. This also reduces traffic and wear on roads, emissions and greenhouse gasses from vehicles, and pollution. People might use less paper (less paper waste 32.2%) (NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH,2021), printing and copying fewer pages when at home vs. in an office. Also, in terms of paper use, people use less paper and plastic cups, utensils and other supplies normally in an office kitchen (less space and energy consumption 20.5%). If the office has non-environmentally-friendly coffee pod machines that the worker doesn’t have at home, that waste will also be reduced. Less furniture and equipment (phones, copy machines, printers, etc.) would need to be purchased (and possibly manufactured) (NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH, 2021). This would lead to less usage of supplies that are often non-sustainable such as ink cartridges.

What About My Video Calls Causing CO2 Emissions?
There is a statistic that says that one hour of an ultra-HD video call creates 2.8 kg of CO2 per participant. Let’s imagine that in today’s meeting-heavy world, which also needs to change, we are having an average of 3 hours of video calls per day. Multiply by approximately 260 workdays in a year, and you personally are emitting 2,184 kg of CO2 per year for your video calls (CMSWIRE, 2020). Turning off your camera in video calls could cut carbon emissions by 96% (Forbes, 2021).
Another interesting point to stress is the impact of remote working on the physical and mental health of the people and the quality of the results produced. For example, social isolation, managing your own time and schedule, blurred line between personal and professional life, distractions, reduced supervision and direction, communication and coordination challenges, unclear performance metrics and failing to network.

Is Remote Working Environmentally Friendly?
Most signs point to yes, remote working is more helpful to the environment than not. While this has been debated for years, it became clearer when people noticed the positive environmental changes during the pandemic lockdown, however, only part of the environment improvements seen during the lockdown would be caused by workers staying out of offices. But the most accurate answer is “it depends”. So, if people used to drive to work and now are working from home, the footprint is more likely to be lower now and that is because although they have that higher energy bill at home it is counterbalanced by the fact that they are no longer driving to work causing air-pollution and carbon emissions. For people used to using public transport or walking to work, their footprint is more likely to be higher. One good piece of advice for everyone working from home is to use less energy, this might be helped by financial motivations. (Turn off the lights, unplug devices and avoid heating or cooling if possible.)
Behaviours that are causing stress to the environment can be changed and improved. Many of us would prefer fewer meetings, both over video and in-person. How we heat or cool our homes or apartments can be improved by more energy efficient appliances and approaches. With the pandemic forcing us to conduct meetings over the phone or video calls, perhaps in-person meetings can continue to be decreased in the future, reducing the environmental impact of travel.

PROS/CONS of the action

Pros: Cons:

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Link to useful sources

Telework in the EU before and after the COVID-19: where we were, where we head to ec.europa.eu
Why working from home might be less sustainable www.bbc.com
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