A cleaner, greener, hybrid future? New research finds hybrid working can offer a green alternative to the traditional commute

With studies showing employees actively seeking flexible working opportunities, new research has found that hybrid working can also offer significant emissions reductions compared to the traditional 5-day commute.

Published

May 3, 2023

Could hybrid working offer a green alternative to the daily commute?

New data suggests that hybrid working- a mixture of remote working and in-office working- has the potential to significantly reduce carbon emissions when compared with the more traditional 5-day commute to a city office. A recent study by IWG and Arup has looked at the carbon savings of hybrid working in two major cities in the UK and US- London and Los Angeles, as well as transport emissions in Atlanta, Glasgow, Manchester, and New York. The research sought to calculate the CO2 emissions arising from both commuting and energy use in workspaces, focussing on office-based employees who work in central business districts; it then looked to assess how new working patterns are impacting emissions.

The research compared three employment locations- city centre workspace (workspace located in the central business district), local workspace (e.g., a co-working space, a satellite office, or even a café or library. It is assumed the local workspace is not in the city centre and is within 6km – a 15 to 20-minute cycle – of a worker’s home), and home working (a workspace in one’s home where it is assumed there will be no transport-related emissions, as people would not be making any trips to ‘travel to work’)[i]. It then looked at the following four scenarios:

Traditional 5-day commuting – The employee attends their office in the city centre all year round, reflecting the typical pre-pandemic working patterns.
Home and headquarters – The employee splits their time 50:50 between an office in the city centre and home. Transport emissions are zero while at home. However, the emissions from the employee’s home will increase to allow for increased heating, cooling and equipment usage.
Close to home – The employee splits their time between home and a local workspace, altering their commuting patterns. Because their local coworking space has a higher occupancy rate than their office in the city centre, building emissions are lower than if they were working downtown.
HQ, local workspace and home – The employee divides their time between all three work locations, attending the local workspace and home far more frequently than the city centre office, which they only use on 10% of their working days[ii].

The results for LA were that the close-to-home scenario had the lowest emissions due to the large reduction in transport-related emissions compared to travelling to a city centre workspace. In fact, if a worker in Los Angeles stopped their traditional 5-day commuting into the city centre and instead worked close to home, their carbon footprint would drop by approximately 70%.

In London, it was found that in all four scenarios, emissions from buildings contributed the bulk of emissions due to the high share of people in London who walk, cycle or take public transport. As with LA, traditional 5-day commuting was found to be the most carbon-intensive of all four scenarios, “indicating scenarios which reduce the number of trips to the city centre will reduce the carbon footprint of working. Transport makes up around 37% of total emissions when working from a city centre workspace.”[iii]

Mark Dixon, Founder and CEO, IWG said: “The headline result is that allowing people to work close to home, enabling them to split their time between home and a local workplace, has the potential to reduce a worker’s work-related carbon emissions by over half - and as much as 70% in Los Angeles.”[iv] He added, “Today, two thirds of workers in the USA can operate remotely. And 84% of UK workers who worked remotely during the pandemic said they planned to continue using hybrid working.”[v]

However, where an in-office presence is required, the commute itself can be further challenged and made more environmentally sympathetic. We previously reported that 20% of public transport commuters and 10% of private car commuters in England expressed a willingness to engage more with walking and cycling to work; as such, there is the potential for policy-level and business-level interventions to drive uptake. Cycling is also an actionable topic, with the success of the cycle-to-work scheme laudable (1.6 million commuters enabled to cycle) and the simple steps businesses can take to ensure that their premises have ample space for the safe storage of bicycles[vi].

Employers take note: Workers are increasingly seeking out remote working opportunities

It’s not just the green potential of hybrid working that should be receiving the attention of business leaders; workers are increasingly seeking such opportunities from their employers as work-life balance becomes increasingly valued.

A study late last year by Aviva, which sought to gauge workers’ attitudes to their employment, found that more of the individuals surveyed said they were attracted to their current role for the work-life balance (41%) than the salary (36%). Aviva noted that this is a switch in rankings when compared with results in 2019 before the pandemic. At that time, marginally more workers said they were attracted to the salary (41.02%) than the work-life balance (40.97%)[vii].

Laura Stewart-Smith, Head of Financial Wellbeing at Aviva, said: “Before the pandemic, it would have been difficult to imagine a time when employees would pick a role for the work-life balance over the salary. The pandemic seems to have shone a light on the importance of being able to juggle family-life, exercise-life, dog-life – whatever the lifestyle – with work-life. Getting this balance right for employees and employers is a tricky one but if successfully achieved it can often mean a happier and more productive workplace.”[viii]

It supports the most recent data from Flexa’s quarterly Flexible Working Index, which found that as we move towards summer, workers are increasingly seeking out employment opportunities which offer the chance to work remotely. Their research discovered that searches for “fully remote” roles (where there is no obligation to come into an office) rose by 21% between January and March this year[ix].. This was up from 48% of all searches in January to 58% of all searches in March[x]. Additional data revealed that searches for companies who offer “Work From Anywhere” (WFA) schemes (whereby employees can spend a period of time working outside their usual jurisdiction) have risen month-on-month since the start of 2023. Over the last quarter, searches for WFA schemes have more than doubled- from 7% of searches overall in January to 15% of searches in March[xi].

Hybrid models pose challenges in emissions reporting

However, whilst flexible working options may prove beneficial for the environment, they raise a number of challenges for businesses. As we noted in our blog looking at the impact of covid on ways of working, dispersed workforces & hybrid working models are creating issues and stumbling blocks in emissions reporting. A significant challenge now lies in businesses being able to calculate their emissions; how can they accurately do so when many in their workforce may no longer be operating from the office or are only present at certain times?

For example, during the pandemic, the huge surge in home working meant that an estimated 470,000 tonnes of carbon went underreported by UK businesses in 2020 alone, according to a study by Bulb and Ecoact[xii]. It highlights both the challenges and the importance of businesses accurately accounting for their scope 3 emissions when the workforce is so dispersed. This is especially important given the increasing pressure companies see to be transparent and open around their emissions, even more so with supply-chain activities under the microscope.