Summary

Conventional wisdom is that employees who work from home (telework) reduce their carbon footprint. That in turn contributes to their employers reducing theirs. But how much is actually saved and how? A model is presented which scopes the carbon emission impact of telework using average UK data. It shows that significant carbon savings - over two tonnes of CO2 per person per year - come when employees telework to the extent that they have no permanent office desk. But this more intense teleworking stresses managers, staff and organisations and requires support and training to underpin significant behaviour change.

Introduction

The aim of this paper is to illustrate the impact on its carbon footprint of an organisation having its staff telework (work at home) for a range of days per week. The reality in many organisations is that some people work from home occasionally while others have a regular arrangement. To help an organisation get a view of what carbon savings telework could deliver it would be helpful to know how carbon emissions vary due to different intensities of telework. At the same time an organisation needs to be able to assess the behavioural change implications of teleworking.

To answer these questions, a model was created using average UK data of carbon emissions arising from office and home working from zero to five days a week. It also incorporated estimates of the difficulty of teleworking for these numbers of days

This paper differs from others that have modelled, and found, carbon savings from telework because it does not attempt to give estimates on a national or global scale. Here the focus is a UK organisation who wishes to scope what carbon reduction it could achieve from telework and how difficult that would be. The factors that determine the carbon impact of telework in any particular organisation will vary greatly, depending principally on the commuting practices of its employees and its office energy usage. However, this paper offers a scoping of impacts and the model used here can be applied to real organisations.

Model of carbon savings from telework

A Carbon And Telework Model was created using UK average data for four impacts that are entailed in the carbon emissions from telework. Business travel was not included and is not modelled in this paper.

Five views of results from the model were taken as follows:

• View 1: showing proportional annual carbon emissions per person for a range of intensities of telework. Car commuting and office energy consumption are modelled.
• View 2: showing estimated annual carbon emissions per person across a range of telework intensities. Car commuting and office energy consumption are modelled.
• View 3: showing estimated annual carbon emissions per person across a range of telework intensities. Car commuting, office and home energy consumption and extra home car journeys are modelled.
• View 4: showing the scope of savings from one person across a range of telework intensities.
• View 5: showing the scope of savings (and desking ratio) from a 1000-person organisation that has adopted teleworking to a range of intensities.

Only Views 2 and 4 are presented in this public version of the paper. All five views are presented in the private version available from the author.

View 2

Figure 1 shows View 2's estimate of carbon emissions per person across a range of telework intensities. View 2 models the CO2 emissions due to one employee from (a) occupying an office desk or a fraction of one (desks are assumed to occupy office space which is assumed to be directly proportional to office energy consumption and thus carbon emissions) and (b) commuting by car. It gives an organisation's perspective, that is, what an organisation might use to estimate the scope of carbon savings. This view also shows an estimate of difficulty for different intensities of teleworking.

The model shows decreasing emissions from increasingly-difficult telework. The dramatic drop in emissions for more than two days a week teleworking is due to modelling hot desking (that is, a time-shared desk) rather than a permanent office desk. Office desk ratios (desk:people) are modelled as follows: teleworking 0, 1 and 2 days = 1:1; teleworking 3 days = 1:2.5; teleworking 4 days = 1:5, teleworking 5 days = 1:10.

The difficulty of teleworking shown in Figure 1 is estimated as percentages of difficulty against 100% difficulty of teleworking five days a week, on the following basis.

• Working at home one or two days a week needs managers and staff to change behaviour, staff to re-organise their homes and family arrangements, and organisations to re-organise IT, HR and support systems.
• Teleworking three days a week and more stresses staff, managers and organisations (as summarised here). The absence of a permanent office desk, issues with performance management and less contact with the work group makes it quite different from "working at home a couple of days a week."
• Five-day-a-week teleworking means only rare visits to the office or another meeting place. Operating much like a self-employed person, the teleworker has increased risk of disengagement. However, staff can be exposed quite unprepared to this extreme intensity of telework when an organisation summarily closes offices

View 4

Table 1 shows the results of View 4, which is a scoping of the carbon savings (compared with not teleworking) from one person teleworking to a range of intensities. Also shown is an estimate (from View 2) of the difficulty of telework that delivers that saving. The assumptions are those of View 2.

Table 1. Illustrating the scope of savings from one person across a range of telework intensities and difficulties. Only direct impacts are modelled (as per View 2) in tonnes CO2 per annum.

Discussion

Carbon reduction strategies

This model reveals some effective strategies that an organisation can take to reduce its carbon footprint through telework.

• Encourage teleworking for more than half the week. Table 1 predicts direct savings of over two tonnes of CO2 per person per year. It is teleworking of this intensity (assuming associated office space reduction) that delivers significant savings.
• Do not preserve office space for people who do not come in to the office. This model assumes that a permanent office desk is provided for someone who is in the office only three days a week. This follows an assumption made elsewhere and is likely to be a widespread if generous practice. However, the shape of the graph in Figure 1 shows dramatically what the impact of a more aggressive hot desking regime would be.
• Ensure savings are delivered. What delivers carbon savings (in this model) is not directly a reduction in the number of office desks. Rather, it is a reduced need for energy to create a comfortable environment for people at those desks. To achieve actual savings, the organisation must ensure that fewer desks really do amount to less space, and that now-unused space is not heated, cooled or lit. That is, suites or floors are closed down.
• Do not ignore less commuting. Even if office energy reduction is not immediately possible, reduced commuting still delivers healthy savings, as outlined below.

Savings from office space and commuting

The model estimates that most of the saving in carbon emissions possible from telework are due to lower energy consumed by less office space, as a result of its shrinkage by not providing a permanent desk per employee. Figure 1 shows that not commuting by car (modelled for one and two days' a week teleworking) has considerably less effect than, in addition, not occupying a permanent office desk (modelled for three or more days a week teleworking). The savings from reducing bus, rail, bicycle or pedestrian commuting would be less. However, this does not mean that teleworking should be ignored if office space savings cannot be immediately made.

• As Table 1 illustrates, teleworking three days a week makes a direct reduction in car commuting emissions which is over half of the saving from not using office space.
• Table 1 also shows that not making one average car commute a week gives a gross saving of a quarter of a tonne of CO2 per year per person. In total, commuting accounts for roughly 2.5% of the UK's total emissions. So if all UK workers who commuted by car did not do so on average one day a week, 0.5% of the country's total emissions would be saved.
• Less commuting reduces stress and has further environmental benefits such as less traffic and eventually fewer cars. It is also relatively quickly implemented and gives teleworkers a stake in carbon reduction activities.
• Finally, when it is properly implemented with training, staff generally welcome one or two teleworking days a week and are more productive. Telework has been adopted by thousands of organisations long before anyone thought about saving carbon.

Telework difficulty

Figure 1 and Table 1 give estimates of the difficulty of teleworking. This is to present a balanced picture. It is easy to become fixated on emissions figures and forget the consequent change of workstyles and lifestyles. Or to think that the organisation's only role is to reduce its carbon footprint. But people need to be able to work in ways that fit their capabilities and their circumstances and the organisation must continue to deliver what it is there to deliver. Training and support for teleworking is the link that gives organisations their best chance of achieving carbon reduction from a satisfied, engaged and productive workforce.

Conclusion

According to the Carbon and Telework Model presented here, telework does bring carbon emission savings. Most of these are due to less energy consumed by smaller office space, although less car commuting makes a healthy contribution. Intensities of telework yielding most savings occur when people work more than half the week at home and time-share desks rather than having permanently-allocated desks. Direct savings of over two tonnes of CO2 per person per year are indicated. But it is hard to make the behaviour change to such a workstyle: the carbon savings from telework are mirrored by its increasing difficulty. Organisations and individuals need quality training and support to help them make teleworking successful and, in the human as well as climate sense, sustainable.

NOTICES

This paper

Please cite this paper as: Gundry, John "How Telework Can Cut UK Organisations' Carbon Footprint - Public Version". Knowledge Ability White Paper, version 1.0 September 2010.

A private version of this paper, which additionally shows Views 1, 3 and 5 of our model, describes its quantitative assumptions and cites references, is available to approved organisations. Please contact the author.

Resources on telework

Relevant to this topic, Knowledge Ability offers the Successful Telework training workshop and the Don't Travel - Work Remotely short online class, more detail of which can be seen here . We also offer two consulting packages Are You Ready for Telework? and Telework Audit more details of which are here.

About the author

Dr John Gundry is Director of Knowledge Ability Ltd, a UK-based company that provides international training and consulting on virtual teams, remote working and teleworking. Contact gundry@knowab.co.uk - +44 (0)1666 826654

Copyright and disclaimer

This paper is copyright © Knowledge Ability Ltd 2010. All Rights Reserved. This paper is provided for information only and no permission is granted to reproduce this paper in any form or exploit this paper or the information in it for any commercial purpose whatsoever without our express permission in writing.
The information in this paper may contain errors. Knowledge Ability Ltd does not warrant the accuracy of the information in this paper. This paper is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty.
Working by Wire is a trademark of Knowledge Ability Limited.