Open AccessA preliminary scenario analysis of the impacts of teleworking on energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
Author(s) -
Farzam Kharvari,
Sara Azimi,
William O’Brien
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of physics. conference series
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.21
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1742-6596
pISSN - 1742-6588
DOI - 10.1088/1742-6596/2069/1/012077
Subject(s) - greenhouse gas , electricity , energy consumption , environmental economics , consumption (sociology) , baseline (sea) , scenario analysis , information and communications technology , environmental science , business , engineering , computer science , economics , finance , ecology , social science , oceanography , sociology , geology , world wide web , electrical engineering , biology
This paper uses scenario analysis to investigate the broader impact of teleworking in four scenarios including the COVID-19 pandemic, worst-, moderate-, and best-case scenarios on building-level energy use, energy consumption in transportation, and information and communication technology (ICT) usage by using the databases of the Government of Canada. The COVID-19 scenario relies on the available data for the pandemic period. The worst-case scenario is when telework has an adverse effect on energy use while the moderate-and best-case scenarios are when the minimum and maximum savings are achieved by telework. The data includes commuting distances, electricity and natural gas consumption for offices and residential buildings, and ICT usage. Then, the associated GHG emissions are calculated for transportation, residential and office buildings, and ICT and the analysis are carried out by applying a potential fraction of saving to the associated GHG emissions of each domain and scenario. This paper demonstrates the potential energy savings of teleworking significantly depends on teleworker behavior to a degree that in the worst-case scenario no potential saving is observed while the savings are significant in the best-case scenario. Therefore, the impact of telework is highly uncertain and complicated and current statistics are insufficient for accurate estimates.