The initial impact of lockdown measures and the major change to remote working last year was immediately felt as suggestions had leant towards a remote working future being the green option – the commute of millions of workers was brought to an end in favour of the home office as cars remained parked and public transportation sat empty. As efforts to get workers back have started once again and a shift continues with some returning to the day-to-day schedule and others enjoying the new flexibility, a lot of questions have been called to whether or not the current approach is the greener option, or if further change may be needed to deliver on a more sustainable promise.
Remote working as a whole has always played its part and been a factor, you can access more information here about the many who have explored remote options in the digital nomad lifestyle in a greener way, but having the same approach for the many that haven’t experienced remote working before is a very different thing–whilst commuting does account for the largest contribution to emissions for many countries, there are some fears that this hybrid approach could be a bigger contributor as businesses scramble to try to understand what their new carbon footprint could be with a split between those working from home. The commute for the part of the week without an office trip needs to be removed from the equation, and the energy usage at home needs to be factored in – but is it even possible to quantify this data? Data can of course be tracked for average home energy usage, home gas usage, and other factors too, but it much more difficult of a thing to control.
It does raise a very good question and something that some companies have explored extensively in this past year, particularly with those honing efforts to become as carbon neutral as possible, something that has become that much more difficult, and the true climate impact of this hybrid approach has yet to really be discovered. For the question in mind, is remote working the greener option? For now, it is too difficult to tell, and will be something explored over the coming years as patterns start to find a more permanent settled position as those who are more likely return to the office do, and those who are more likely work from home choose this option too.
For now, the current thought is that this approach could create a worse-case scenario, but there’s lots of change yet to come particularly around clean energy in homes and other factors that could lead to more balance, but only time will tell on this front as investigations continue.