Statistics Canada has been looking at the potential implications for public transit and greenhouse gas emissions as more people find themselves working from home. Telework has the potential to reduce daily commuting times for many workers. This, in turn, could reduce traffic congestion, affect the demand for public transit, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The study looks at the potential impact from a situation in which all potential teleworkers would work from home most of the time. The result could be a reduction of annual GHG emissions attributable to transportation by about 8.6 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. This represents 6.0% of the direct emissions from Canadian households in 2015 and 11.0% of their emissions attributable to transportation that year.
Stats Canada says, before the pandemic, roughly one in three Canadian workers was someone who held a job that could plausibly be done from home but was usually not working from home most of the time.
The agency notes that if personal homes are less energy efficient than large office buildings, part of this reduction in emissions could be offset by emissions associated with households’ increased energy use required for heating or air conditioning.
A transition to full telework capacity could reduce the total number of commutes made in a given year by workers who were previously using public transit by roughly one half, which would reduce demand for public transit by a significant amount.
The study also shows that if all Canadians who can work from home started teleworking instead of commuting, they could save about 55 minutes per day, on average.
Statistics Canada warns that all of these numbers must be interpreted carefully. They measure the potential direct impact of a transition to full telework capacity but do not take into account behavioural changes that might result from the COVID-19 pandemic or from other factors.
The analysis is also based on the assumption that the economy transitions to a point where telework capacity is fully utilized. Whether such transition to full telework capacity will materialize once the COVID-19 pandemic is over remains to be seen.
