Study suggests that employees who are allowed to work part-time from home may be harmful to the environment, as it encourages people further from work.
According to research from the University of Sussex Business School, remote workers in England traveled more each week than office-based workers, despite making fewer trips.
Employees who worked remotely once or twice per week traveled an average of 100 miles per week, compared to 63.5 miles for those who only worked remotely once or twice per year.
This was partly due to the fact that remote workers were more likely to live farther from their workplaces than office-based employees, so although they commuted less often, their journeys were still longer.
Researchers discovered that those who worked from home more than three times per week lived 4.2 miles farther from their workplaces than those who work from offices. Those who worked from home less often lived 7.6 miles.
Remote workers were also able to travel further when they worked from their homes, for example, by making more trips into shops and cafes than people who work in an office.
Unintended consequences
Researchers found that people who work from home made seven percent more trips to the car for non-work purposes than those who were primarily based in offices.
Steven Sorrell, Professor of Energy Policy at the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU), University of Sussex Business School, stated: Our study found that remote working can have unintended effects that offset the potential travel and carbon saving.
You may be able to commute less often if you live farther from your workplace. You may also consider taking additional trips if you work from home during the week, whether to buy groceries or simply to get outside the house.
These possibilities must be considered when estimating the contribution that teleworking will make to carbon targets.
The study used data taken from the English National Travel Survey for the purpose of estimating the impact of telecommuting on travel patterns in English households between 2005 and 2019, analysing information about approximately 3.6million trips by approximately 269,000 persons.
Although the research was done using data from the 15 year prior to the pandemic, many people have moved farther away from their workplaces during the coronavirus pandemic. This is because work from home has become more normalised.