Dematerialization by Telework and Videoconferencing

Telework

In nearly every economic sector ICT can be used for the dematerialization of physical products or processes. Teleworking has an effect on the transport sector, since the travel ways to and from offices can be reduced by working from home. The Telework Research Network published following figures about the saving potential induced by teleworking in the United States of America [1]:

• Savings of over 280 million barrels of oil. 
• Greenhouse gas savings of 53 million tons, which would be over 21 percent of the USA’s aim of reductions by 2020. 
• Savings of about 1 billion dollar in highway maintenance, due to reductions of wear. 
• Companies could save 200 billion dollar in office buildings, including utilization and maintenance costs. 
• The resulting electricity savings from offices could power 900,000 homes per year. 
• Reductions in traffic related injuries and deaths, resulting in cost savings of 12 billion dollar a year. 
• Each employee could save up to between 1,800 and 6,800 dollar in transportation and work-related costs. 
• While 40 percent of employees in the USA have jobs that would allow teleworking, only 2 percent work from home most of the time. 

In total the extensive use of telecommuting could save more than 650 Billion Dollar a year. According to the authors of the referenced website, these figures are a result of synthesizing 250 case studies, a number of reviews and interviews with virtual employers and their employees, as well as top researchers on the topic [1].

Also The Climate Group states in it’s SMART 2020 Report that more than half of the emissions saving potential of dematerialization by ICT is made up of the proliferation of telecommuting. In numbers this would be 0.26 GtCO2e in 2020 globally [2]. Other researchers assume the potential savings in greenhouse gas emissions due to telecommuting to be 588.2 million tons just for the USA [3]. One of the major environmental benefits of telecommuting arises from reduced work-related travel. Due to the possibility for people to increasingly work from home, this “could provide help in de-coupling transport growth and economic growth” [4]. The reduction in physical traffic volume may be partly offset by additional trips in leisure time. Furthermore telecommuting could be a reason to move to rural areas, which would result in longer distance travel at days when working at the office [3]. These coherences can be termed as rebound effects. Studies approved that in some cases teleworkers undertake additional trips, that would usually be combined with traveling to and from workplace (e.g. shopping), which offset about half of the travel savings in average [4]. Taking all the considerations into account, an increase of telecommuting would have a significant positive effect on the environment.

Telework is also a concept of dematerialization in the buildings sector. Studies show that a significant number of workers working from home at three days a week could lead to energy savings of 20 to 50 percent, even when the resulting increase of energy demand in homes is considered [2]. Telecommuting or telework was enabled by the distribution of broadband networks, that allow to transfer large amounts of data. It means “working remotely via the use of ICT solutions” [2], while the remote workplace is usually represented by the private home. The energy and emissions savings are composed of reduced travel routes and the possibility for companies to build and maintain smaller offices. This requires the sharing of workplaces, which makes at least three days of teleworking a week necessary. The space in typical office buildings is utilized only about 18 percent of total time [5]. This fact shows that the improvement of utilization of existing space, could lead to reduced demand for new buildings and therefore to a significant reduction of emissions, arising from construction, utilization and maintenance of new buildings. A precondition to energy and emissions savings by telecommuting in the buildings sector is, that teleworkers give up their office spaces, or at least share them. Otherwise reductions in carbon emissions by telecommuting can be expected from reduced travel only [4]. A research work done in the USA is assuming that a home office would bring energy savings of about 3500 kWh on average compared to a commercial office. This would lead to savings of 46.6 billion kWh of electricity, or 56.8 tons of CO2e per year, at a supposed number of 13.3 million telecommuters in the USA [3].

Videoconferencing

A second example for the dematerialization of travel ways is videoconferencing. This approach replaces physical meetings by providing ICT equipment for video-telephony over the Internet. There are studies that claim that significant reductions in emissions could be achieved by reducing physical traffic by videoconferencing [6]. In this context it has to be mentioned, that approaches like videoconferencing and telecommuting have already been existing for a while and have not been adopted as widely as it could have been expected during this period [2]. In 2005 only 3,9 percent of the population of the 25 member states of the European Union regularly used the Internet for video- or audio conferencing [4]. This shows that the level of acceptance is an important issue for the adoption of ICT developments. Therefore it is essential that the ICT infrastructure allows an adequate user experience while videoconferencing for example, so that it gets a viable alternative to physical meetings [6].

A research work of 2004 from Norway on the impact of videoconferencing on business travel determined, that the substitution rate of business air travel by videoconferencing is only 2.5 to 3.5 percent [7]. The author also claimed, that videoconferencing is mainly used for intracompany communication. This fact suggests that personal contact is still the preferred way of conducting business between companies and maybe will remain dominant over virtual meetings. The main reasons for companies for the adoption of videoconferencing are time and cost savings (cf. figure 1) [7]. It can be hypothesized that a significant increase in travel costs could be a reason for companies to utilize videoconferencing technology more extensive. Several case studies showed that the potential carbon savings arising from the use of teleconferencing (audio and video), can be numbered as about 15 percent of the company’s business travel [4].

Figure 1: Reasons for videoconferencing (a higher score means more important) [7]

References

[1] teleworkresearchnetwork.com. Telework savings potential. http://www.teleworkresearchnetwork.com/cut-oil. Accessed: 2013-02-12.

[2] The Climate Group. Smart 2020: Enabling the low carbon economy in the information age. Technical report, The Climate Group on behalf of the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI), 2008.

[3] J.P. Fuhr and S. Pociask. Broadband and Telecommuting: Helping the U.S. Environment and the Economy. Low Carbon Economy, vol.2:41–47, 2011. 

[4] Bio Intelligence Service. Impacts of information and communication technologies on energy efficiency, final  report. ftp://ftp.cordis.europa.eu/pub/fp7/ict/docs/sustainable-growth/ict4ee-final-report_en.pdf, September 2008. Accessed: 2013-02-12.

[5] B. Tomlinson. Greening through IT - Information Technology for Environmental Sustainability. The MIT Press, 2010.

[6] P. Fernando and A. Okuda. Escap technical paper: Green ICT - a “cool” factor in the wake of multiple meltdowns. http://www.unescap.org/idd/working%20papers/IDD_TP_09_10_of_WP_7_2_907.pdf, December 2009. Accessed: 2013-02-12. 

[7] J.M. Denstadli. Impacts of videoconferencing on business travel: the norwegian experience. Journal of Air Transport Management, 10(6):371 – 376, 2004.