DIVERSITY
But can we make conclusions from these statistics alone , and is working from home really greener ?
With less travel comes higher energy consumption While it is a well-known fact that COVID-19 restrictions around the world have contributed to the decrease in air pollution and CO2 emissions , they may , somewhat conversely , encourage higher energy consumption , according to at least eight studies .
The earliest adopters of working from home were millennials and Gen Z , who are also the first generations fully or largely born with the internet at the touch of a finger .
A study conducted by WSP UK , an engineering consulting firm based in London , also indicates that remote work may only be more environmentally-friendly in the summer - at least in the UK , anyway . Due to the need for individual heating in the winter compared to the heating of one office building , it was found that the environmental impact of remote work during the season was higher .
But , the situation is not a one-sizefits-all . In the US , cooling in the summer months is more important than heating in the winter months . This means the situation is the reverse in America , according to Associate Professor of Environmental and Energy Economics at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies Kenneth Gillingham . It also does not stop there , since whether the cooling or heating is environmentally-friendly depends on where the energy comes from . While some regions are powered by hydro , some are powered by coal .
Thanks to the flexibility granted by WFH , the time generally allocated to commuting is shifted for recreation and other purposes , contributing to the increased home energy consumption discussed above . Research from the University of Manchester also found that pollution production did not