Greenhouse gas emissions under work from home vs. office: An activity-based individual-level accounting model

Abstract

Changes in residential, work, and commuting activities caused by work from home (WFH) have great impacts on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, but high-resolution quantifications of the changes in GHG emissions are still lacking. In this study, an activity-based bottom-up modeling approach and U.S. nation-scale datasets were employed to investigate the impact of different work arrangements on GHG emissions. The GHG footprint of a typical day (24 h) under WFH and work in office (WIO) was estimated and compared. The results revealed that WFH could mitigate GHG emissions by 29.11% (4.06 kg CO2e/person/day) compared with WIO. This was mainly due to the decrease in commuting and workplace emissions (reduced by 4.23 and 1.34 kg CO2e/day/person, respectively), but residential GHG emissions increased by 1.51 kg CO2e/day/person under WFH due to work, cooking, laundry, and watching TV and movies. Moreover, the demographic groups that reduced their work hours more after a shift from WIO to WFH achieved fewer reductions in GHG emissions, emphasizing the importance of group-specific considerations when proposing decarbonization strategies. Finally, several recommendations were provided to decarbonize WFH and WIO from an activity-based perspective. The results of this study provide insights into the environmental benefits of WFH and contribute to promoting low-carbon living to achieve climate goals.