When Working From Home Is Good for the Environment

Working from home used to be seen as a perk for the lucky few, but in today’s modern, connected world, thanks to technology, employees can pretty much set-up their office wherever they are. This has benefits not only in terms of employee wellbeing, it also brings significant environmental advantages.

CNH Industrial N.V. piloted a ‘Smart Working’ initiative in Italy, and the numbers speak for themselves. 2019 saw a 125% increase in uptake over 2018, the inaugural year. Last year also saw some 72,232 ‘smart working’ days registered. In real terms over 2,552,723 commuting kilometres were eliminated. In real terms this equates to some 64 circumnavigations of the Earth. But it was not just distance which was saved, time spent commuting was reduced by 75,080 hours – that’s some 8.5 years! Perhaps, however, most importantly for the environment, some 312 tonnes of CO₂ have been saved, the equivalent of that produced from planting 15,600 trees.