[ad_1]
London, May 4 (IANS) A massive shift to work from home accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic may not be beneficial to Mother Earth, as the energy savings were offset by increased travel for recreation or other purposes, along with the additional use of energy in home, says new study.
Most of the studies on the subject analyzed by researchers at the University of Sussex in the UK agreed that working from home reduced energy use and commuter travel, by as much as 80 percent in some cases.
But, according to the researchers, a small number of studies found that telecommuting increased energy use or had a negligible impact, since energy savings were offset by increased travel for recreation or other purposes.
“While most studies conclude that teleworking can contribute to energy savings, the most rigorous and wide-ranging studies present more ambiguous findings,” said study researcher Andrew Hook, a professor at the University of Sussex. .
“When studies include additional impacts, such as non-work travel or office and home energy use, potential energy savings seem more limited, and some studies suggest that, in the context of increasing distances Higher between the workplace and home, midweek telecommuting could lead to a net increase in energy consumption, “Hook explained.
“While blocking has clearly reduced power consumption, only some of those savings will be achieved in more normal teleworking patterns,” said study researcher Steven Sorrell.
“To assess whether teleworking is truly sustainable, we need to look beyond the direct impact of commuting and investigate how a full range of daily activities changes,” added Sorrell.
The study, published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, provides a systematic review of current knowledge of the energy impacts of teleworking, synthesizing the results of 39 empirical studies from the US. USA, Europe, Thailand, Malaysia and Iran published between 1995 and 2019.
According to the researchers, even the massive migration of workers to home work could have only a small impact on overall energy use.
One study noted that even if all US information workers. USA If they were telecommuting four days a week, the drop in national energy consumption would be significantly less effective than a 20 percent improvement in car fuel efficiency.
The study also warns that technological advances could erode some of the energy savings due to the short lifespan and rapid replacement of information and communication technology (ICT), its increasingly complex supply chains, its dependence on rare earth elements and energy intensive development. processes like cloud storage and video streaming.
The authors added that modern work patterns are becoming increasingly complex, diversified, and personalized, making it harder to track whether telecommuting is definitely contributing to energy savings.
“Unless workers and employers fully commit to working from the home model, many of the potential energy savings could be lost,” the researchers noted.
The research was conducted by the Energy Demand Solutions Research Center (CREDS), a UK-based research center, which tracks changes in energy demand.
[ad_2]
