Shift to home working could save time, money and cut carbon emissions

Removing the time spent commuting by a full three hours a week could improve a worker’s productivity by about 8%, while also saving €90 in terms of the value of the time they’re not having to give up getting to and from work.

The shift towards more remote working in future could save people time and money, while cutting carbon emissions from commuting by as much as 60%, experts have said.

Removing the time spent commuting by a full three hours a week could improve a worker’s productivity by about 8%, while also saving €90 in terms of the value of the time they’re not having to give up getting to and from work.

However, the potential pitfalls of a hybrid working model in future could mean people miss out on career opportunities and face even longer commutes when they do have to go to the office if they choose to relocate from urban centres.

At an online webinar, experts from NUI Galway outlined their research into remote working during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Professor Alma McCarthy said there was a clear preference for those who have been working from home since March 2020 to keep doing so at least a couple of days a week.

“There is a huge appetite to continue to work remotely, or hybrid for at least some or all of the time post-crisis,” she said.

90% want to retain remote working

According to surveys commissioned by NUI Galway and the Whitaker Institute, more than 90% of people who’d been remote working wanted to retain it into the future.

Dr Eoghan Clifford said, based on their research, if people were allowed to retain their working from home preferences into the future it would result in a 60% reduction in commuting emissions.

“This translates to around about 1,800 kilo tonnes of C02 emitting per annum on a national basis, and approximately 16 to 20% reduction in transport emissions,” he said.

Dr Clifford said this would be the equivalent of the heat and electricity use of 360,000 homes annually, and added that increased uptake of electric car usage – as proposed in the Government’s Climate Action Plan last week – in the future could bring further benefits in terms of transport emissions.

"If we achieved our remote-working targets, we would likely see about a 73% reduction in total emissions from the combination of remote working plus the introduction of EVs [electric vehicles],” he said.

Environmental economist Dr Thomas McDermott said remote working offered the potential for emissions savings, alongside greater productivity and extra time and money for workers through less commuting.

Relocation

“People are being quite productive when working from home,” he said. “More than a third of respondents cited ‘I get more work done’ as an advantage of working from home.” He said almost half of people surveyed said they would consider relocating in the near future, while 7% of respondents said they already had.

“The biggest proportion of people looking to relocate are currently in Dublin,” he said. “So if people are relocating out of Dublin, presumably largely motivated by looking for lower housing costs, does that mean they end up with longer commutes and more likely to be commuting using private car?” 

At a meeting of the National Public Health Emergency Team, among the items on the agenda will be a renewed focus on the work from home advice.

Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan said his own department had issued advice for staff to work from home “because the levels of transmission are simply too high”.