People who work from home all the time ‘cut emissions by 54%’ against those in office

Corporations should be held responsible for the emissions caused by their employee's commuting.

This would really change the discussion about return to office.

And time. Instead of commuting, I'll mow my grass, water the plants, do some chores, etc.

My wife commutes and can't work remotely. I try to consider that and do more chores to bring balance.

That extra 20-30 minutes in the morning and 40 minutes in the PM is priceless, actually.

One criticism of WFH is that you'll have increased energy bills since you're home all day. Aside from the obvious reasons that's wrong, this provides hard data showing that WFH is better for the environment in addition to being better for literally everyone except commercial real estate investors.

Study in US

The difference is likely less in developed countries with functional public transport

WFH allowance should be mandated -- anyone that wants it for a job where it's possible must be allowed it. it's such a dramatic quality of life difference.

people who burn less gas and consume less resources burn less gas and consume less resources, more news at 11.

but it's nice they're pinning numbers onto the amounts

As a full time remote worker, I can confirm, I'm driving so much less. My commute prior to the pandemic was 18 minutes (12.7 miles one way), so 25 miles round trip with 36 minutes spent driving each work day. My commute was short compared to a lot of other people I worked with who'd drive 45 minutes one way, some 1 hour one way! That's a lot of driving that can be cut out if the role allows for remote work.

Um... no fucking shit.

Transporting millions of people dozens of miles twice a day OF COURSE has resource costs, in carbon and pollution and energy consumption. This shouldn't be rocket science. Sadly it is for people who are afraid of change.

It also saves the workers money (as they don't have to pay for fuel or public transit), it saves the company money (as they don't have to pay for office space), it saves the environment (as you don't have pollution from commutes), it reduces traffic (as you don't have as many commuters at rush hour), and it's generally good for just about everybody except commercial real estate developers renting out overpriced office buildings and Starbucks that's paying absurd rents to be in the bottom floor of those overpriced office buildings. And of course middle managers who think that hounding their employees in person somehow accomplishes something.

That much is obvious. And for us commuters of public transport, it is such a relief to notice the traffic is not as bad and heavy as they used to be pre-pandemic, due to people now working from home.

With many businesses now wanting workers to return working on site, I think this shows the true colours of capital-owning class in relation to climate-change. Despite all the shifting of responsibility to make consumers monitor carbon-footprint, and corporate marketing of supposedly environmentally-friendly products, if CEOs and billionaires truly care about the environment, they would not even demand workers to return working on-site 5 days a week. Green-washing indeed.

Edit:clarity

The office is a total waste. A complete, total loss. Fuck that shit.

I went from commuting close to 2 hours daily, with much of that spent stuck in traffic, to working fully remotely. I'd have to get gas every week. Now I go weeks at a time before needing to get gas.

Even better, I used to work for a chemical company part of one of the big oil and gas corporations. Now I work for a green energy company. It cracks me up just how different the two situations are.

Just being able to cook at home has reduced our food waste for sure.

I bike to work and turn off my AC/heat and power strips at home before I ride off. I wish everyone could experience how easy this is, I fucking hate driving through traffic.

I have solar panels on my roof. My employer's building does not.

I've actually started... walking to work. It takes me like 45min. So it's not a short walk, though it's a very short car commute. But the world is so different now that I'm walking. Having lived in car dependency vs walking is so different. And it's healthy for you too. More people should try it, if i's possible.

There are so many CEOs putting their own private portfolio over the companies they supposedly run having a high staff attrition, and yet “they command such big salaries because they take on so much risk”.

Well, I've traded burning fuel for burning internet and electricity at my home. My electricity at home is mostly solar (from my roof) and hydro from the grid (I live in Washington State).

Working from home spares me ~20 uncompensated transit hours a week, so the emissions difference (whether I use transit or drive) is substantial and so is the cost savings (in fuel and parking). FWIW, my employer will pay for my transit fares (but not fuel or parking) and that's nice and all, but I'm squeamish about transit during flu/covid season because of all those coughing people going in to jobs that don't encourage them to stay home while sick.

I'm able to work more hours when I do it from home because I'm not constrained by transit schedules/catching the last train out of town, and that way I still come out ahead in terms of having time with my kids, and I have time to take grocery shopping and meal planning and prep off of my wife's plate.

It's better this way, not just in terms of cost and environmental impact and quality of life, but productivity-wise.

If the American owner class has taught Americans paying any attention the last century anything about how they operate, it's "Fuck the commons/planet/species/future, burn it all if it makes me a dollar slightly faster!"

Profit in this case being all the corporate park land they own. Propagating human misery at every step for nothing more than to run up their capital ego score, that doesn't even effect their living conditions at all.

Good thing they don't consider their victims, people without significant net worth, human.

In the two weeks since my work mandated three days in the office I've spent $150 on gas. Awesome.
Granted part of that reason is the car broke down and I had to drive the truck.

right but the issue is not environment pollution , its the real estate. They all are empty so fuck the environment and bring yo 9-5 ass to office.

Non-existent public transport much?

People who live in caves all the time cut emissions by 95%.

Ugh I really want to out the company I work at. Of all companies we should be going and advocating for remote.

But we aren't. 'Because being with each is SO valuable'.

That's probably primarily a consequence of bad zoning and transportation policy in the U.S - higher density zoning and public transportation/cycling infrastructure would address this more than enough.

Slapping a WFH-band aid on top of this mess doesn't really address the root cause. That's not to say you shouldn't be able to WFH - work whichever way suits you best - but I don't find this particular argument compelling as for a reason to advocate for WFH.

The only thing about the 54% number, for me, is that it's not higher.

This shouldn't be news to anyone.

I’m not sure the people making the decisions about work from home have any concern for its effect on carbon emissions.

I am like infinitive times more productive when working from home. I am voluntarely coming to office usually 1 day per week and oh boy I don't work in office. Vaping, walking around, chatting, meetings, vaping, snacks, walk outside.

I think I will become pro-office at some point lol. 😅

Yeah, but they deprive their bosses of the opportunity to walk into the building and have everybody who meets them say "Good Morning Mr. Analwart Sir" before shutting their office door and playing Minesweeper for 3 hours

Permanently Deleted

mild shock

The main causes of remote workers’ reduced emissions were less office energy use, as well as fewer emissions from a daily commute.

I mean yeah, that makes sense,

But I wonder what the numbers are when it comes to everyone keeping their homes heated/cooled all day compared to communal heating/cooling of a building.

People working at home will increase their personal emissions to keep their home office heated/cooled, and I suspect you get more bang for your energy buck if they are all in one spot instead of spread out into multiple buildings.

So sure.. less office energy use, but increased home energy use...

I wonder how the study calculated that or even bothered...

You don't get to cut emission likes this, you will stop eating meat tho so better people can fly on private jets. They deserve it, peasants don't deserve anything. Slave bitches!

Interesting. When the impact of individuals on the environment is discussed, a huge number of users here can't stress enough how the effort of the people doesn't matter and is irrelevant.

Stop eating meat and dairy, not buying plastic wrapped stuff, using public transport,... That's all of no use and no one should even dare to mention it since this is all just propaganda by big corporations.

Unless it's about home office. Suddenly there is great agreement that we have to do home office to save the climate! It almost seems like for a lot of people it's not so much about protecting the climate, but about not taking up responsibility when it's uncomfortable.

That's why I can sleep easy at night even though my house is heated by coal.

If your job really can be done as well 100% from home (as many people insist) then you’ve got a problem - because that means it can be done as well 100% from home by some onefrom India or similar and they’ll be cheaper. Be careful what you wish for.

I’m of the view that actually this isn’t true for a lot of jobs, particular anything that involves interacting in a team, just people wish it was.