Greencap Eco-News  |  Issue 10 |  August 2022

Emissions Impacts of Working From Home

As part of Greencap's commitment to all things sustainable, we are pleased to send this regular communication where Greencap's own Eco-Sustainability Committee team members provide interesting facts, quick eco-tips, and recent environmental news.

This issue includes information on global trends around working from home and the impact on Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions and some helpful tips to reduce your own carbon footprint!

Did you know?
Increased rates of Working From Home as 'new normal' have seen significant impacts to business' Scope 3 Emissions

Previously the impacts of employee commuting and WFH were generally simply too small to include in Scope 3 assessment. However since the pandemic, as more and more companies now have well-established flexible working policies (88% of organisations worldwide encouraged or made WFH mandatory during the pandemic) it is worth reconsidering this approach.

Employment Hero reports 84% of people "enjoy working from home" and and even higher 92% would "continue to work from home regularly if given the opportunity".
This behavioural change in employee working patterns has seen more people choose to remain WHF in some capacity as part of their 'new normal' (and at a much higher rate than pre-COVID).

Whilst largely beneficial to a net reduction in Scope 1 and 2 emissions, decreased employee commuting and WFH are actually having a mixed impact in business's Scope 3 emissions which makes this an area worth focusing on.

Scope 1, 2 and 3 Emissions:

The Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Corporate Standard classifies a company’s GHG emissions into three “scopes’:

• Scope 1:  Direct emissions from owned or controlled sources.
   
• Scope 2:  Indirect emissions from the generation of purchased energy.
   
• Scope 3:  All indirect emissions (not included in scope 2) that occur in the value chain of the reporting company, including both upstream and downstream emissions.

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There are 15 separate Scope 3 Categories defined in the standard with Employee Commuting featured as Category 7 (which includes emissions from the transportation of employees between their homes and their worksites).

Reporting on a company’s Scope 3 emissions from employee commuting includes both the Scope 1 and Scope 2 Emissions of employees and also third-party transportation providers.
More and more companies now also include emissions from teleworking/WFH (i.e., employees working remotely) in this category due to the behaviour change post the pandemic.

Scope 3 Category 7 emissions include transportation of employees between their homes and their worksites during the reporting year (in vehicles not owned or operated by the reporting company). The minimum boundary of category 7 is the Scope 1 and Scope 2 Emissions of employees and transportation providers that occur during use of vehicles (e.g., from energy use).

It should be noted that emissions from employee WFH is optional and not included in the minimum requirement.

Source - https://ghgprotocol.org/corporate-standard

Calculation Methodology – Employee Commuting:

Data sources: 

• Employee surveys: How to commute to work when working in the office, how many days WFH each week
• HR platforms: Distance between working locations to employee's home
• Access data: How often employees access the working location
• Public resource data

Process:

1. Develop a carbon emission calculation tool or use available open to public tools (such as GHG Emissions Calculation Tool)
2. Collect accurate FTE (full time equivalent) data per employee to calculate FTE per region
3. Collect number of FTE in the office vs WFH
4. Using public statistics data (bus, rail, tram, metro, private transport etc.)
5. Conduct employee surveys to compare the employee patterns are in line with the statistics and figures gathered from the various data sources
6. Use the tool to calculate emissions using collected data
    

Calculation Hint – Employee WFH Emissions:

• Equipment energy: Office equipment, lighting
• Heating energy: Shared occupancy, seasonality; regional variance
• Cooling system: Shared occupancy, seasonality; regional variance

5 further general energy saving-tips for you at home are available on the Australian Government website:
https://www.energy.gov.au/households/household-guides/5-ideas-saving-energy-and-money

GreenPower is independently accredited renewable energy from entirely renewable sources and is available through most energy retailers. More than 160,000 properties around the country have joined GreenPower and have reduced their impact on the environment by investing in the renewable energy sector.

• Source 100% renewable electricity by 2030 in Australia
• Halve the carbon footprint of their designs and advice by 2030
• Delivering Net-Zero emissions across its global value chain by 2040
• Reduce absolute Scope 1 and 2 market-based GHG emissions by 60% by 2030 (from a 2020 base year)
• Reduce absolute scope 3 GHG emissions by 30% over the same timeframe

Learn more: https://www.wsp.com/en-AU/news/2022/wsp-to-halve-the-carbon-emissions

​Further reading:

• GHG Protocol
• GHG Calculation Tools
• Watch: Could Working from Home Make the World a Better Place? Telecommuting Revolution – Carbon Emissions
• Watch: Homeworking Emissions Calculation Metholodogy Webinar
• https://ourworldindata.org/co2-dataset-sources
• World Bank CO2 Emissions Data
• GHG Emissions Data Set
• Australian Government - Tracking and reporting greenhouse gas emissions
• Australian Government CO2 Data Sets