There is increasing interest in evaluating how working from home and other recent trends impact on energy use and carbon emissions. The latest contribution to this is a very useful Energy Consumers Australia report from Monash University.
A key challenge is how we balance the changes in terms of their impacts on increasing and decreasing overall energy use, household energy costs, carbon emissions, time and personal independence. This is far from straightforward.
If working from home saves car travel of 100km per week, it cuts transport emissions by 25kg of emissions per week for an average car.
If it leads to higher home heating energy use, and the person uses a fan heater powered by grid electricity for an extra 40 hours per week, it could add emissions of 25kg…
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Renew (Digital) - 1 Issue, 166 / Jan-Mar 2024