Corporations should be held responsible for the emissions caused by their employee’s commuting.
This would really change the discussion about return to office.
In Nottingham, UK they made it so companies have to pay for every parking space per year over a certain amount, and that money gets invested in public transport. Over time congestion has grown much slower in Nottingham than similar cities, I’m amazed that more cities don’t do the same.
This is the way
Companies should be on the hook for all negative externalities. Make them internalities and watch how quick things change
But then how would they exploit the poors?
Lol they spent decades doing the opposite, generating the vast majority of emissions with big manufacturing and big livestock, and then successfully shifting blame on poor peasants claiming the planet is heating because they’re not sorting their recycling well enough.
Well, for positions that could be moved to WFH perhaps. To others that would be unfair because companies would descriminate by distance to the office.
So you also make sure location discrimination is illegal as well. There can be multiple parts to the legislation.
Before we do anything else we should be working to end lobbying and put every single lobbyist leech on society out of a job. Otherwise this is all pipe dreams. They’ll just lobby it away.
I still don’t understand how
briberylobbying is legal.
I’ve seen that already, at least pre-Covid and in the U.S. Even though I’m pretty sure that asking that during an interview is illegal, I’ve been on post-interview sessions where someone inevitably says “yeah, but this candidate lives nearly an hour away, while this other candidate lives 15 minutes away…” so they found out somehow.
Um… no fucking shit.
Transporting millions of people dozens of miles twice a day OF COURSE has resource costs, in carbon and pollution and energy consumption. This shouldn’t be rocket science. Sadly it is for people who are afraid of change.
It also saves the workers money (as they don’t have to pay for fuel or public transit), it saves the company money (as they don’t have to pay for office space), it saves the environment (as you don’t have pollution from commutes), it reduces traffic (as you don’t have as many commuters at rush hour), and it’s generally good for just about everybody except commercial real estate developers renting out overpriced office buildings and Starbucks that’s paying absurd rents to be in the bottom floor of those overpriced office buildings. And of course middle managers who think that hounding their employees in person somehow accomplishes something.
Study in US
The difference is likely less in developed countries with functional public transport
And if they drive, they drive less ridiculous cars. The fact that the F150 is the most sold car in the US is just mind boggling.
Is it really a proper car if it does more than four miles to the gallon?
Wait is this really true?? Why do so mamy people feel the need to buy trucks?
Because they might need to move a large piece of furniture someday…
Wouldn’t they just hire a truck if they ever need that? I mean that’s what we did, we moved twice in the last 20 years and one involved moving over 300 miles away to another city
No way, that just makes too much sense
I mean there are companies that do this for you, carry everything over (from the front of house to placing them inside as well, like couches and tv and everything) so you don’t do anything really except paying them money (and ask for refund if they broke something 😡). Like I guess it’s called forwarding
people who burn less gas and consume less resources burn less gas and consume less resources, more news at 11.
but it’s nice they’re pinning numbers onto the amounts
That much is obvious. And for us commuters of public transport, it is such a relief to notice the traffic is not as bad and heavy as they used to be pre-pandemic, due to people now working from home.
With many businesses now wanting workers to return working on site, I think this shows the true colours of capital-owning class in relation to climate-change. Despite all the shifting of responsibility to make consumers monitor carbon-footprint, and corporate marketing of supposedly environmentally-friendly products, if CEOs and billionaires truly care about the environment, they would not even demand workers to return working on-site 5 days a week. Green-washing indeed.
Edit:clarity
The blatant disregard there will be of this research, which will be the case, tells you everything about the viability of trusting the captains of industry to navigate us away from climate collapse
The only thing about the 54% number, for me, is that it’s not higher.
This shouldn’t be news to anyone.
One criticism of WFH is that you’ll have increased energy bills since you’re home all day. Aside from the obvious reasons that’s wrong, this provides hard data showing that WFH is better for the environment in addition to being better for literally everyone except commercial real estate investors.
I would assume it takes far more energy on heating/cooling/ventilation systems for large buildings in general than it does for a series of small buildings that have classic ventilation systems called “windows that open to let in fresh air.” Something that is pretty rare in office buildings.
EDIT: Furthermore, large buildings usually have automated systems that keep it roughly the same temperature throughout the whole building while individuals in their own homes might try to keep heating/cooling bills low by choosing to only heat/cool specific rooms that they’re actually physically using. I know I certainly do this at home, no sense in doing temp control in a room no one is occupying (other than making sure it’s above freezing for pipes, etc.).
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Ostensibly you could turn down your thermostat during the day to save money, but almost no one does this
Not if you have pets at home
Maybe I’m weird but I get my doggie sweaters and socks to keep him warm.
And when it’s 100+f in the summer? AC has to run enough to keep them cool
That’s why I can sleep easy at night even though my house is heated by coal.
Ignoring all societal implications of burning coal, heating your own home by burning coal is super bad for your lungs!
Yeah, but you should hear the cool sound it makes when they deliver a truckload of coal down the chute.
You don’t get to cut emission likes this, you will stop eating meat tho so better people can fly on private jets. They deserve it, peasants don’t deserve anything. Slave bitches!
The main causes of remote workers’ reduced emissions were less office energy use, as well as fewer emissions from a daily commute.
I mean yeah, that makes sense,
But I wonder what the numbers are when it comes to everyone keeping their homes heated/cooled all day compared to communal heating/cooling of a building.
People working at home will increase their personal emissions to keep their home office heated/cooled, and I suspect you get more bang for your energy buck if they are all in one spot instead of spread out into multiple buildings.
So sure… less office energy use, but increased home energy use…
I wonder how the study calculated that or even bothered…
Interesting. When the impact of individuals on the environment is discussed, a huge number of users here can’t stress enough how the effort of the people doesn’t matter and is irrelevant.
Stop eating meat and dairy, not buying plastic wrapped stuff, using public transport,… That’s all of no use and no one should even dare to mention it since this is all just propaganda by big corporations.
Unless it’s about home office. Suddenly there is great agreement that we have to do home office to save the climate! It almost seems like for a lot of people it’s not so much about protecting the climate, but about not taking up responsibility when it’s uncomfortable.
