Work from home CO2

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2021, 38% of employed persons did some or all of their work at home on days they worked. With all the talk about return to office policies, I wanted to learn more about the CO2 impact of so many people working from home. Are CO2 emissions reduced and how much?

What to count in estimating CO2 reductions from WFH?

The simplest to understand is commuting. Less driving, less CO2. How much less? According to the journal Nature Climate Change, daily global CO2 emissions decreased by 17% by early April 2020 compared with the mean 2019 levels, just under half from changes in surface transportation.

In a more narrow study, a Reuters writer surveyed 20 large companies including Salesforce, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, Fidelity and REI about WHF and CO2. The writer wanted to explore more than just commuting. Energy uses at home and work can be substantially different. Corporate offices may be more energy efficient than homes. Individuals make different choices about heating and cooling homes. The 20 companies surveyed had varying degrees of data collection. Salesforce found remote work has cut emissions 29% per employee, while Meta calculated that employees through commutes and remote work produced more than a tonne of CO2 per person in 2020, down from 2 tonnes the year before.

In another analysis, cities with relatively clean electricity and long car commutes, found that widespread telework could reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

In one last study I found of 815 employees across a 2-year time horizon, in both pre- and COVID periods, remote working reducing commuting emissions by 43% in 2019 and 97% in 2020. ?

How do companies count employee commuting emissions?

The most widely used methodology for inventorying a company’s greenhouse gas emissions is the Greenhouse Gas Protocol.?Employee emission guidelines are contained in Scope 3, Category 7. This category includes emissions from the transportation of employees between their homes and their workplaces. This includes emissions from automobile, bus, rail, air, and other modes like subway. Companies can also include emissions from remote working. There are three methods that can be used. A decision tree (below) in the Category 7 guide helps companies determine which method is right for their model: Fuel-based method, distance-based, or average-data method.

Bottom line

It is early days in understanding the true net impact of work from home vs. work from a company office. Some behaviors to consider in a full inventory include energy footprint, transportation footprint, technology footprint and waste footprint.?

Sources & further reading

The Work-From-Home climate challenge https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2022/05/10/1097609647/the-work-from-home-climate-challenge

Commuting and Its Toll on Workers https://www.trustinsights.ai/blog/2022/08/commuting-and-its-toll-on-workers/

Is Remote Work Greener? We Calculated Buffer’s Carbon Footprint to Find Out https://buffer.com/resources/carbon-footprint/#:~:text=Daily%20commute,-Environmentally%20speaking%2C%20one&text=The%20average%20American%20commutes%20to,employee's%20work%2Drelated%20carbon%20footprint.

Calculating your carbon emissions from commuting https://www.sustain.life/blog/calculating-carbon-emissions-commuting

Disclaimer: Sustainability Navigator is Elba Pareja-Gallagher's personal ESG newsletter published every Monday (except holidays). Views expressed are her own. Corrections and respectful feedback are always welcome.