In 2019, the average Metro Detroit area employee spent 50.3 minutes/day on their work commute. This resulted in an average of 8.5 days that year being lost to commute. Beyond looking at work-life balance, that commute time also puts a negative impact on the environment. In 2020, many commuters stopped taking their cars to work, and began working from home instead. What type of changes were we able to see in regards to the environment? Global Workforce Analytics, in their Business Case for Remote Work 2021 Report gives us some great facts. They report a 30% reduction in U.S. gas consumption for the period of March through early July 2020. When compared to 2019, researchers estimate these shifts in energy consumption led to a 15% reduction in U.S. carbon dioxide emissions.
We’ve collected 8 statistics from the IEA, an organization that works to shape a sustainable energy future. These stats show how the move to remote work & remote learning have impacted the environment. This also includes reduced transportation, including air travel, throughout 2020 as well. Check out their article, Global Energy Review: CO2 Emissions in 2020: Understanding the Impacts of Covid-19 on Global CO2 Emissions. It features an analysis done across 69 countries representing 85% of the world’s population and 97% of global CO2 emissions.
Here are the stats:
- Daily global CO2 emissions decreased by –17% by early April 2020 compared with mean 2019 levels, with just under half of the decrease coming from changes in surface transportation alone.
- At their peak, emissions in individual countries decreased by –26% on average.
- Global emissions from surface transportation fell by –36% by early April 2020, and made the largest contribution to the total emissions change.
- CO2 emissions declined by –60% in the aviation sector during the same period, and by –21% in the public sector.
- A small growth in global emissions occurred in the residential sector (+2.8%), representing the move to work from home.
- As primary energy demand dropped nearly 4% in 2020, global energy-related CO2 emissions fell by 5.8%, the largest annual percentage decline since World War II.
- In the United States specifically, stay-at-home orders due to the pandemic led overall annual CO2 emissions to decline by more than 10%, or almost 500 metric tons of CO2.
- Transportation emissions decreased the most in the United States, with a 14% decline as activity plummeted in April.
A change for the better
Here is one more stat we want to throw in from Global Workplace Analytics: “If 3.9 million people worked from home at least half of the time, that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions in an amount equivalent to removing 600,000 cars from the road for an entire year.” To replicate that reduction, it would take planting 91 million trees, according to 2017 Global Workplace Analytics data.
Here at CallHarbor, our team has a flexible work environment. Our leadership allows us to work where we feel most productive, and wherever we can get our job done successfully. Our company had a flexible work environment before the pandemic. Many others are moving toward more long-term fully-remote & hybrid workplace options, certain to benefit the environment in the long-run.
Check out another of our blog posts about the 3 types of hybrid working that are emerging now.