“The average American commutes to work by car just under one hour each day – roughly 32 miles, which equates to about 3.2 tonnes of CO2 per person every year.” - Is Remote Work Greener? By Juliet Chen/Buffer April 24, 2020
Roughly 1 in 4 Americans worked primarily at home in 2021. So what would be the reductions in CO2 emissions if, post-pandemic, a quarter of American workers continued to work at home - say, an average of 2 days a week?
Around 31.2 million tonnes* a year give-or-take, I think. Here’s how I arrived at that figure:
Putting the 31.2 million tonnes in context, here’s what the US transportation sector has been emitting over the past few decades:
Ok, so 31.2 tonnes divided by 1920 = 1.6% of total US transportation-related CO2 emissions in 2019. Not much in the scheme of things, but a step in the right direction. Besides, this is probably how the battle to combat climate change is likely to be won: one small advance at a time.
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* Tonnes = metric tonnes = 1000 kilograms
** Close to 10% of Americans worked from home at least part of the time pre-pandemic (many self-employed). However, I’m assuming that prior emissions calculations were not corrected for occasional remote work, as I could not find pre-pandemic emissions calculations that took occasional remote work into account.
References:
Is Remote Work Greener? By Juliet Chen/Buffer April 24, 2020
Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey. Bureau of Labor Statistics
The Slowly Changing U.S. Commute. By Nikos Tsafos, Center for Strategic and International Studies. June 12, 2019
Working from Home: More Americans Are Telecommuting. By Iris Arbogast, Charles S. Gascon , Andrew Spewak St. Louis Federal Reserve October 09, 2019