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.
The office is a total waste. A complete, total loss. Fuck that shit.
Corporations should be held responsible for the emissions caused by their employee’s commuting.
This would really change the discussion about return to office.
In Nottingham, UK they made it so companies have to pay for every parking space per year over a certain amount, and that money gets invested in public transport. Over time congestion has grown much slower in Nottingham than similar cities, I’m amazed that more cities don’t do the same.
Companies should be on the hook for all negative externalities. Make them internalities and watch how quick things change
But then how would they exploit the poors?
Well, for positions that could be moved to WFH perhaps. To others that would be unfair because companies would descriminate by distance to the office.
So you also make sure location discrimination is illegal as well. There can be multiple parts to the legislation.
Before we do anything else we should be working to end lobbying and put every single lobbyist leech on society out of a job. Otherwise this is all pipe dreams. They’ll just lobby it away.
I still don’t understand how
briberylobbying is legal.
I’ve seen that already, at least pre-Covid and in the U.S. Even though I’m pretty sure that asking that during an interview is illegal, I’ve been on post-interview sessions where someone inevitably says “yeah, but this candidate lives nearly an hour away, while this other candidate lives 15 minutes away…” so they found out somehow.
As they should…
Lol they spent decades doing the opposite, generating the vast majority of emissions with big manufacturing and big livestock, and then successfully shifting blame on poor peasants claiming the planet is heating because they’re not sorting their recycling well enough.
This is the way
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
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.
Study in US
The difference is likely less in developed countries with functional public transport
And if they drive, they drive less ridiculous cars. The fact that the F150 is the most sold car in the US is just mind boggling.
Wait is this really true?? Why do so mamy people feel the need to buy trucks?
The sad thing is, I really want a truck for transporting stuff for hobbyist gardening and woodworking, but it’s so hard to find a truck that isn’t 20ft tall with more cabin than bed space. Two door trucks are getting harder to find.
Because they might need to move a large piece of furniture someday…
Wouldn’t they just hire a truck if they ever need that? I mean that’s what we did, we moved twice in the last 20 years and one involved moving over 300 miles away to another city
No way, that just makes too much sense
I mean there are companies that do this for you, carry everything over (from the front of house to placing them inside as well, like couches and tv and everything) so you don’t do anything really except paying them money (and ask for refund if they broke something 😡). Like I guess it’s called forwarding
It’s primarily a cultural thing
Is it bad that I’m seeing more and more of those huge ass trucks here in Australia?
Those trucks make no sense to me.
Bloody GM’s fault for killing Holden and taking away our beautiful utes
Yes, as an American that prefers to drive small cars I feel like driving is no longer safe. I can’t see past any of the tank sized cars that make up 75% of the vehicles on the road and I know, from experience, how destructive getting hit by one of those vehicles can be. I’m down to driving 1-2 times per month and I’m terrified every time I get behind the wheel. The only reason I keep a car is to visit family that lives about 130km away since the Republicans in my area have killed every train project between my hometown and my parents’ town.
Is it really a proper car if it does more than four miles to the gallon?
The only thing about the 54% number, for me, is that it’s not higher.
This shouldn’t be news to anyone.
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.
I would assume it takes far more energy on heating/cooling/ventilation systems for large buildings in general than it does for a series of small buildings that have classic ventilation systems called “windows that open to let in fresh air.” Something that is pretty rare in office buildings.
EDIT: Furthermore, large buildings usually have automated systems that keep it roughly the same temperature throughout the whole building while individuals in their own homes might try to keep heating/cooling bills low by choosing to only heat/cool specific rooms that they’re actually physically using. I know I certainly do this at home, no sense in doing temp control in a room no one is occupying (other than making sure it’s above freezing for pipes, etc.).
Yeah. Having a laptop and extra monitor on all day at home probably uses less electricity than the fridge.
Ostensibly you could turn down your thermostat during the day to save money, but almost no one does this
This depends greatly on the home and how the home is used for how effective changing the thermostat during the day actually is. You have to keep it mildly in a comfortable temperature range to prevent damage to the home, plus any people or animals at home during the day will reduce the savings available by adjusting the thermostat. There’s also the problem of the fact that if you let the home get too far outside of the desired range the HVAC then has to “catch up” for when you get home which may be enough to not only negate but use more energy and if it just stayed at one set temperature.
All of the increased energy use at home is nothing compared to the energy use of a personal car. My family was able to go down to a single vehicle thanks to hybrid work. Literally an entire car off the road. We live in a rural area where traveling between towns is a requirement and driving your own car is the only way to reliably get between towns, so being a single car family and not missing having a second car is a rare luxury where we live
Not if you have pets at home
Maybe I’m weird but I get my doggie sweaters and socks to keep him warm.
And when it’s 100+f in the summer? AC has to run enough to keep them cool
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 blatant disregard there will be of this research, which will be the case, tells you everything about the viability of trusting the captains of industry to navigate us away from climate collapse
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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!
That’s why I can sleep easy at night even though my house is heated by coal.
Ignoring all societal implications of burning coal, heating your own home by burning coal is super bad for your lungs!
Yeah, but you should hear the cool sound it makes when they deliver a truckload of coal down the chute.
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…
I don’t know about your home and office, but every office I worked in had atrocious heating and cooling. People wear hoodies inside all summer because the AC is set too low.
definitely a perk working from home, you decide temperature/sound/etc.
But I’m talking from an overall society energy use perspective.
I’m curious if the energy efficiency of having people in one building compares to the energy efficiency of them spread out.
It will greatly vary, as some are already in apartment buildings sharing that efficiency, some are in better eff rated homes, some are in worse eff rated homes.
Not sure this study can accurately claim 54% … even if they said ±10%, it’s still probably way out to lunch.
I remember reading about a study pre-pandemic that found remote work was greatly better from an emissions standpoint than in-office work and it mostly came down to the massive amounts of resources spent commuting, and if I remember correctly it even found the emissions cost of commuting by public transit to be significant enough to see improvement by remote work
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.
District heating is popular in parts of the world. We could lower emissions caused by commuting and lower emissions due to shitty tiny furnaces.
District heating (and cooling) would also alleviate the problem of people continuing to run ancient furnaces and air conditioners that are simply too old and worn down to be effective
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.
Stop eating meat and dairy,
SURE!!! Because aside from the fact of all the carbon-neutral farms out there at this point, which aside from them going that way for tax credits is irrelevant, that actually puts back into the soil and regenerates our literally dead soil. Pretty different story from all the mono-cropping destruction that’s happening otherwise.
But those evil cow farts right??? When cows aren’t fed trash corn and grain and actually graze on grass like they’re supposed to, the gas isn’t a problem, not that it is anyways. But then you’d lose the talking point for plant based eating, wouldn’t ya? Most emmisions are from transportation, which is happening either way. Nice try.
