According to a study from the United States, teleworking can reduce the carbon footprint by up to 58% compared to working in the office.
The study, based on ‘Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences’ models (Pnas, a publication of the National Academy of Sciences, United States), analyzed the potential of remote working to reduce employees’ carbon footprint.
The Covid-19 pandemic has increased the prevalence of teleworking, which can impact greenhouse gas production due to changes in factors such as travel and residential energy consumption.
The study published this Monday, led by Cornell University in the United States, assessed greenhouse gas emissions resulting from this transition, taking into account factors such as information and communication technologies, daily commuting, -ecological travel, work and energy consumption in offices and homes.
The team, led by Longqi Yang, used multiple datasets with more than 100,000 examples, including from Microsoft employees in the US, on commuting and teleworking.
For their study, they modeled greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. workers in the five categories mentioned above and compared predicted emissions for “on-site,” fully remote, and hybrid workers.
The model indicated that employees who telework only would achieve a 58% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions compared to employees who work physically, mainly due to lower energy consumption in the office.
Teleworking one day a week reduced expected emissions by only 2%.
In contrast, two to four days of remote work per week reduced an employee’s emissions by up to 29% compared to on-site workers.
The increased use of information and communication technologies has had a “negligible effect” on emissions, while energy use in the office and non-daily trips to work are important, the researchers point out.
The study also suggests that maximizing the environmental benefits of remote working depends on multiple factors, such as vehicle choice, commuting and energy efficiency in homes and offices.
Source: DN
