Remote Working Carbon Emissions: A New Methodology

Green Element and Compare Your Footprint have developed a new methodology to measure remote working carbon emissions. The methodology obtains specific information about employees’ working from home patterns and energy fuel types used, presenting more accurate carbon emissions data.

Why include home office emissions?

If everybody who could work from home did so one day a week, it would save ~1% of global oil consumption for road passenger transport per year. But global energy use increased by up to 40% as people worked from home during COVID-19. If home office emissions are beyond the reporting boundary, companies may under-report their impact as emissions shift from office to home.

The methodology

An employee survey of ~18 questions covering: hours worked from home, workstation equipment (desktop 100W, laptop 60W, monitor 20W, video calls), lighting type (LED, halogen, tungsten), and heating fuel type (gas, electricity, oil, heat pumps). Heating accounts for ~88% of home working emissions; equipment and lighting for ~12%.

Key findings from pilot

Five SMEs piloted the methodology. The shift from office to home working almost halved emissions between 2019 and 2020 for one case study. However, this should be measured case-by-case. The survey has since been expanded to include the US, Shanghai, and Singapore, with air conditioning estimates incorporated for warmer climates.