Increased working from home can save up to 3.7 million tons of climate-damaging greenhouse gases per year. This is the result of a study by the Öko-Institut, which examines the environmental and social impact of mobile working during the pandemic. The researchers also take into account the fact that sometimes people still have to travel to work.
Regardless of the means of transportation chosen, working from home for just one day a week could reduce the greenhouse gas balance. "Even after the pandemic, a mix of office presence and mobile working can therefore be beneficial from an environmental point of view and save around one million tons of greenhouse gases even in the most conservative scenario - with 20 percent working from home. That is roughly equivalent to the emissions produced by 370,000 cars in an average year," says Konstantin Kreye, expert on climate protection and mobility at the Öko-Institut.
For the study, the researchers compared traffic-related emissions with the emissions caused by the equipment and operation of laptops and other devices at home. The Öko-Institut's full working paper "Working from home - good for the environment and employees?" is available free of charge at oeko.de/fileadmin/oekodoc/compan-e_Homeoffice.pdf.
Source: oeko.de
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