Abstract
Information and communication technologies (ICTs) increasingly enable employees to work from home and other locations (‘teleworking’). This study explores the extent to which teleworking reduces the need to travel to work and the consequent impacts on economy-wide energy consumption. The paper provides a systematic review of the current state of knowledge of the energy impacts of teleworking. This includes the energy savings from reduced commuter travel and the indirect impacts on energy consumption associated with changes in non-work travel and home energy consumption. The aim is to identify the conditions under which teleworking leads to a net reduction in economy-wide energy consumption, and the circumstances where benefits may be outweighed by unintended impacts. The paper synthesises the results of 39 empirical studies, identified through a comprehensive search of 9000 published articles. Twenty six of the 39 studies suggest that teleworking reduces energy use, and only eight studies suggest that teleworking increases, or has a neutral impact on energy use. However, differences in the methodology, scope and assumptions of the different studies make it difficult to estimate ‘average’ energy savings. The main source of savings is the reduced distance travelled for commuting, potentially with an additional contribution from lower office energy consumption. However, the more rigorous studies that include a wider range of impacts (e.g. non-work travel or home energy use) generally find smaller savings. Despite the generally positive verdict on teleworking as an energy-saving practice, there are numerous uncertainties and ambiguities about its actual or potential benefits. These relate to the extent to which teleworking may lead to unpredictable increases in non-work travel and home energy use that may outweigh the gains from reduced work travel. The available evidence suggests that economy-wide energy savings are typically modest, and in many circumstances could be negative or non-existent.
Highlights
Efforts to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions focus upon both technological innovation and behavioural change, while recognizing that these domains are interdependent (Bel and Joseph 2018, Creutzig et al 2018, Dubois et al 2019)
Based on patterns in the sample data, teleworking by between 20% and 50% of the population once a week would contribute to emissions reductions of between 31 000 tonnes and 78 000 tonnes of CO2 per year
This article has conducted a systematic review of the evidence on the impacts of teleworking on energy consumption
Summary
Efforts to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions focus upon both technological innovation and behavioural change, while recognizing that these domains are interdependent (Bel and Joseph 2018, Creutzig et al 2018, Dubois et al 2019). One area that has received particular attention is encouraging technology-enabled changes in working patterns to reduce commuter travel and office-related energy consumption (Hopkins and Mckay 2019). Since the transport sector in the United States (US), for example, accounts for around 33% of final energy use, a reduction in commuter travel could have a significant impact (Zhu and Mason 2014). One trend that could reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions from travel is teleworking, where employees use information and communication technologies (ICTs) to work from home, in satellite telecentres or in other locations. Despite assumptions that teleworking would provide an important contribution to a ‘lower energy future’, evidence of its impacts is inconclusive (Brand et al 2019). While some studies suggest that teleworking can reduce energy consumption (primarily through avoided commuting) by as much as 77% (e.g. Koenig et al 1996), others find much smaller gains, with some studies suggesting a paradoxical increase in energy consumption (e.g. Rietveld 2011)
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