Corporations should be held responsible for the emissions caused by their employee's commuting.

This would really change the discussion about return to office.

And time. Instead of commuting, I'll mow my grass, water the plants, do some chores, etc.

My wife commutes and can't work remotely. I try to consider that and do more chores to bring balance.

That extra 20-30 minutes in the morning and 40 minutes in the PM is priceless, actually.

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.

WFH allowance should be mandated -- anyone that wants it for a job where it's possible must be allowed it. it's such a dramatic quality of life difference.

Study in US

The difference is likely less in developed countries with functional public transport

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

As a full time remote worker, I can confirm, I'm driving so much less. My commute prior to the pandemic was 18 minutes (12.7 miles one way), so 25 miles round trip with 36 minutes spent driving each work day. My commute was short compared to a lot of other people I worked with who'd drive 45 minutes one way, some 1 hour one way! That's a lot of driving that can be cut out if the role allows for remote work.

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.

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

I went from commuting close to 2 hours daily, with much of that spent stuck in traffic, to working fully remotely. I'd have to get gas every week. Now I go weeks at a time before needing to get gas.

Even better, I used to work for a chemical company part of one of the big oil and gas corporations. Now I work for a green energy company. It cracks me up just how different the two situations are.

Just being able to cook at home has reduced our food waste for sure.

I have solar panels on my roof. My employer's building does not.

I've actually started... walking to work. It takes me like 45min. So it's not a short walk, though it's a very short car commute. But the world is so different now that I'm walking. Having lived in car dependency vs walking is so different. And it's healthy for you too. More people should try it, if i's possible.

Well, I've traded burning fuel for burning internet and electricity at my home. My electricity at home is mostly solar (from my roof) and hydro from the grid (I live in Washington State).

Working from home spares me ~20 uncompensated transit hours a week, so the emissions difference (whether I use transit or drive) is substantial and so is the cost savings (in fuel and parking). FWIW, my employer will pay for my transit fares (but not fuel or parking) and that's nice and all, but I'm squeamish about transit during flu/covid season because of all those coughing people going in to jobs that don't encourage them to stay home while sick.

I'm able to work more hours when I do it from home because I'm not constrained by transit schedules/catching the last train out of town, and that way I still come out ahead in terms of having time with my kids, and I have time to take grocery shopping and meal planning and prep off of my wife's plate.

It's better this way, not just in terms of cost and environmental impact and quality of life, but productivity-wise.

There are so many CEOs putting their own private portfolio over the companies they supposedly run having a high staff attrition, and yet “they command such big salaries because they take on so much risk”.

If the American owner class has taught Americans paying any attention the last century anything about how they operate, it's "Fuck the commons/planet/species/future, burn it all if it makes me a dollar slightly faster!"

Profit in this case being all the corporate park land they own. Propagating human misery at every step for nothing more than to run up their capital ego score, that doesn't even effect their living conditions at all.

Good thing they don't consider their victims, people without significant net worth, human.

In the two weeks since my work mandated three days in the office I've spent $150 on gas. Awesome.
Granted part of that reason is the car broke down and I had to drive the truck.

right but the issue is not environment pollution , its the real estate. They all are empty so fuck the environment and bring yo 9-5 ass to office.

Non-existent public transport much?

People who live in caves all the time cut emissions by 95%.