Study in US shows one day a week of remote working cuts emissions by just 2% but two or four days lowers them by up to 29%
  • MrSilkworm@lemmy.world
    271·
    8 months ago

    WFH not only cuts emissions. It also helps the worker spend way less money that would otherwise be spent in food, gas and other. It also saves a lot of time commuting from home to work.

    As long as there is a life - work balance, and there is no effect in mental health, WFH is a blessing in more than one ways

    • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
      6·
      8 months ago

      It’s worth keeping in mind too for the mental health that your situation in the office may have been deceptive. My first job, I had a very close knit and friendly work group, but we only very rarely met up after work or on weekends. There were a handful of people, sure, but at the end of the day I was still lonely, and drinking to fill that hole.

      I may not have made many friends while working at home, but I can at least deepen the friendships I do have with my college friends and try to chat with people casually at coffee shops. And work from coffee shops too.

      • Smoogs@lemmy.world
        2·
        8 months ago

        Yeah there is something to be studied about people who yearn to return to office for bonding reasons. I think there’s some deeper issues with people who find their work is the only way to keep/make friends. Or confuse a coworker relationship as a definition of ‘friend’ when the dynamics are actually very different from an intimate friendship dynamic. Not saying that you can’t build a work relationship into a friend but it runs a high chance of not being a sustainable friendship as a family or organically formed friendship that is based on who you are as you not who you are ‘as a work colleague’ which only stretches as far as having someone’s back with a client. (It’s a service relationship that is already about someone benefiting off what you do and not about who you are underneath that)

        If anything a healthy interaction benefits from more time away from work (not travelling to) to interact more with family and more organic friends.(and also why I’m always suspicious of people who do want you to travel and start micromanaging how you travel) cuz their lack of care for their own mental health is being unleashed onto others impacting their lives in a negative way.

        I think this is why in therapy they ask you to define yourself they are looking for the definition of you that you’re not servicing someone else(hence is the issue with work relationships). As that has lots of problems with it on the ground level of mental health.

        • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
          1·
          8 months ago

          Yeah what I found is that friendships I had with people before we became coworkers felt way more like friendships than those I met first through work. The only exception was when I immediately hit it off with someone at work, and we quickly became friends more than coworkers.

    • EatATaco@lemm.eeEnglish
      11·
      8 months ago

      and there is no effect in mental health

      I’m curious about this. Do you have any information I can dive more deeply into when it comes to WFH and mental health?

  • GardeningSadhu@lemm.ee
    18·
    8 months ago

    awesome stuff! lets plant some beautiful nature all over these unnecessary concrete jungles and house the unhoused! Solarpunk is the future!

  • SuperDuper@lemmy.world
    122·
    8 months ago

    Let’s be honest here, it’s managers who are forcing employees to commute into the office for no reason that are raising emissions.

  • WuTang @lemmy.ninjaEnglish
    91·
    8 months ago

    Since October, I must do 3.5h of commute per day to manage/operate systems 300km away from the office.

  • SirEDCaLot@lemmy.today
    3·
    8 months ago

    This should be obvious.

    Make people travel sometimes dozens of miles twice a day every day, and of course there’s a carbon cost to that. Not to mention a health cost to the worker (less sleep for commute time), a mental health cost (less personal/family time), and an overall better deal for the employee (less money spent on transportation related expenses).
    Plus there’s other benefits that are considered ‘bad for the economy’ but are usually good for the worker- for example easier to make breakfast and coffee at home instead of getting Starbucks.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldBEnglish
    01·
    8 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    People who work remotely all the time produce less than half the greenhouse gas emissions of office workers, according to a new study.

    Employees in the US who worked from home all the time were predicted to reduce their emissions by 54%, compared with workers in an office, the study found.

    Wider emissions reducing benefits of working from home include the easing of vehicle congestion during rush hour in commuting areas, which is likely to improve fuel economy.

    According to the study, this could result in longer commuting distances for hybrid workers and a greater carbon footprint due to the increased use of private vehicles.

    The authors said: “While remote work shows potential in reducing carbon footprint, careful consideration of commuting patterns, building energy consumption, vehicle ownership, and non-commute-related travel is essential to fully realise its environmental benefits.”

    While the findings do not apply to workers in many sectors – a bus driver, for example, cannot work from home – it provides pointers on how office-based employers can reduce company emissions.

    The original article contains 591 words, the summary contains 171 words. Saved 71%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!