Work From Home. It’s Good for the Environment.

The pandemic hit. Companies had to turn their in-person meetings into Zoom calls. Managers gave performance reviews while wearing pajama pants. Loaves upon loaves of sourdough were baked.

As people got more used to working remotely, its popularity grew. But, as restrictions lifted, doom-and-gloom reports of the negative impacts of remote work started proliferating. Not only that, but working from home was painted as something that was, at best, for lazy workers who wanted to goof off.

We’re here to counter that. Not only is working from home something worthy of aspiration for people who do indeed work hard. It’s also good for the environment. Let’s dive in.

The environmental picture might not be as simple as we think

One prime example of an outlet warning against being too optimistic about the environmental upsides is the Harvard Business Review. In “Is Remote Work Actually Better for the Environment?,” the authors summarize that “when multiple environmental net impacts are taken into consideration, including factors like energy and technology usage, WFH is not a clear win for the environment.”

When this article was written in March of 2022, that equivocal finding was appropriate. And the authors are a group of people interested in sustainability, so their hesitation is understandable; they wanted to make sure that the hype matched the reality. After all, it is true that there are hidden environmental costs to working remotely. For example, the servers on which so many WFH resources are hosted demand power and cooling, and the tech itself is built out of non-renewable resources.

This all could add up to a significant environmental burden that could indeed cancel out any carbon savings. But, as they pointed out with the costs of working from home, its ecological benefits are likewise multifaceted and more complex than you might first assume.

Oh, actually it is as simple as we think

Naturally, it had a few caveats. For example, working from home only one day a week made little difference. It makes sense; if you’re still mostly dependent on in-office resources, one day away will not significantly reduce your demand in terms of in-office energy use. In that situation, workers will still spend 80% of their time in the office, meaning they’ll most likely require dedicated desk space. And at that point, this approach is identical to full-time in-office work.

But if spaces are made more flexible, and shared desk policies are adopted to allow companies to shrink their total real estate footprint, the study found that “[working] from home (WFH) more than 1 [day] per week could reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, mainly from less office energy use and commuting.”

Likewise, this study examined the claim made in the Harvard Business Review article that “[from] an individual [carbon] footprint perspective, our digital behaviors add up.”

That article cited a finding that a yearly load of emails generated 135 kg of emissions, “the equivalent of driving 200 miles in a family car.”

The more recent study was unambiguous: “[The] impacts of IT usage are negligible.” And to be fair, that 135 kg statistic was indeed based on pre-pandemic data. This only serves to highlight the point, though: hand-wringing about the real environmental effects of working from home have been overblown. In fact, by pursuing a remote-first job, you might even be on the path of shrinking your carbon footprint.

Working from home is worth it

Working from home is far from something harmful from the world. In fact, not only is it better for the environment, it’s also helping achieve equity in domestic responsibilities_{Work From Home. It’s Good for the World.}, and it can improve your health_{Work From Home. It’s Good for You.}.

So don’t let the naysayers discourage you. Stay strong in your aspiration to switch to tech to work from home, and you can find a great remote job, just like AC Slamet_{A Producer Switches to Tech to Find Time for Life: AC Slamet’s TripleTen Story} did. Your urge to land a remote job is, in its own way, an urge towards measurably reducing your carbon footprint. 

We can help with that. Start out by discovering which tech career fits you best by taking our quiz.