A teleworker in the middle of a videoconference session in Nantes, in May 2020. -
Loic VENANCE / AFP
In terms of “office life”, 2020 will undoubtedly be marked by the rise of teleworking in France, which is returning as the Covid-19 epidemic regains strength.
Enough to significantly reduce our greenhouse gas emissions?
This is the question that the Environment and Energy Management Agency looked into in a study.
New mobility, relocations, videoconferences, reorganization of offices… The rebound effects of telework are numerous and not so easy to characterize.
Some are good for the environment, some are not.
A quarter of employees on site at the end of March, 50% at the end of May when there was more than one in ten employees teleworking at the end of July, according to data from the Ministry of Labor.
But now the Covid-19 epidemic has taken off again in France in recent weeks, to the point that several of our metropolises are in a maximum alert zone.
And that teleworking becomes the norm again in many companies ...
Will this boom in teleworking in this very special year be felt in the annual assessment of French CO2 emissions established by the Global Carbon Project at the end of the year?
It is also necessary to understand the environmental benefits of this new work organization.
Do not stop when the home-work trip is canceled
A short answer would be to take the environmental impact of a round trip between home and office and subtract it from our annual emissions.
This is called the modal direct effect of teleworking.
The Ademe (Environment and Energy Management Agency) estimates it, on average, at 271 kg eqCO2 saved over one year per day of teleworking.
End of the discussion ?
Far from there.
Evaluating the environmental benefits is much more complex as it disrupts our habits and is accompanied by rebound effects.
First ambiguity to be resolved: a day of teleworking does not necessarily mean zero mobility.
Would this not be because it is not necessarily done at home, but in a third place that you sometimes have to reach by car.
In a survey published on September 22 and which sought to precisely characterize these rebound effects, Ademe also notes that "the home-office journey is often marked by several stops or stages, whether on the outward or return journey".
Typically the detour to the school to drop off or pick up your children.
New mobility in teleworking
These journeys can be maintained during the telework day, we simply go from traditional chain mobility - on the way to work - to star-shaped mobility, around the home of the teleworker.
Above all, teleworking can offer new travel possibilities.
Micro-shopping, new associative, sports or family activities, transport of a loved one etc.
What could tarnish the environmental benefits of teleworking?
Not so easy to decide.
On the one hand, some of these new mobilities carried out during the week were previously carried out on weekends and are just subtracted from it, observe Ademe.
In addition, “in a first field survey published in July [among 3,990 people], teleworkers and first-time teleworkers * in urban areas tended to want to take advantage of the telework day so as not to take transport / car, but to favor active modes [on foot, by bicycle, etc.] and to relocate their daily lives around their neighborhood, by calling on local shops, ”adds Jérémie Almosni, head of the transport and mobility service at Ademe.
On the other hand, in peri-urban areas, less well served by transport, the effect can be more mixed.
The complexity of the trips statistically increases the probability of using the car, points out Ademe.
We can push the reasoning a little further, by telling ourselves that teleworking makes longer home-work distances sustainable since they are no longer suffered every day.
This relocation of our homes is "a real subject," says Jérémie Almosni.
50% of the first-time teleworkers we surveyed in July expressed the wish and said they were able to move away from their workplace to gain in comfort.
The result: home-work trips may be less frequent, but longer.
Or installations in peri-urban or rural areas, which can translate into increased use of the car.
A videoconferencing effect too?
The rebound effects are not all linked to our mobility.
The massive development of videoconferencing during containment and which should continue in the years to come ** is another.
Not neutral for the environment.
"These videoconferences involve energy consumption linked to the transfer of data, the demand on servers, the operation of our devices," explains Thierry Leboucq, president of Greenspector, which helps companies reduce the carbon impact of their software. these energy consumption tripled when videoconferencing is done with video sharing. "
Using Greenspector's calculations - which estimated the environmental cost of one minute of videoconferencing at 1g eqCO2 -, Ademe assesses this videoconference effect at 2.6 kg eqCO2 per year and per day of teleworking.
“But this is a point that we need to study further with new studies next year,” explains Jérémie Almosni.
This estimate does not take into account, for example, the over-equipment of homes that teleworking can induce.
However, if it tends to intensify in the future, we can assume that the employee will invest in comfort equipment.
A chair, an additional screen etc.
Not a detail.
In its note The hidden face of digital, reissued last November, Ademe estimated that 45% of greenhouse gases generated by our digital activities are linked to the manufacture of our IT equipment.
Is the flex office a big plus for the environment?
The increase in energy consumption at home (heating, electricity, etc.) should also be taken into account, if we continue with the “unfavorable” rebound effects.
But it is counterbalanced with the reorganization of workspaces that teleworking allows.
We are talking here, mainly, of the office on demand - or flex office - a system in which the employee no longer has an assigned office but settles down every morning where there is room.
The advantage of flex office is to optimize office space.
“And if there is an increase in teleworking days, this can even lead companies to reduce their land,” adds Jérémie Almosni.
They thus reduce the associated energy consumption, but these smaller surfaces also make it possible to avoid greenhouse gas emissions linked to the construction or manufacture of equipment.
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These reorganizations of workspaces do not happen overnight, if only because they are partly linked to rental leases.
"But this long-term effect of teleworking should still be taken into account, because it can have a very significant effect on the environmental benefits of teleworking", points out Jérémie Almosini.
Of the twenty-six organizations - representing 350,000 employees - surveyed by Ademe in its September survey, 27% had already gone into flex office and 39% said they were thinking about it.
Overall, a positive balance
In total, all the negative rebound effects identified by Ademe could reduce the environmental benefits of teleworking on average by 31%.
But by adding the induced positive effects - in particular those generated by the flex office - the environmental balance of teleworking remains largely positive, concludes Ademe.
The Agency intends to use the year 2021 to analyze these rebound effects more in depth.
In the meantime, it is already issuing some recommendations to avoid negative rebound effects.
Such as that of “discouraging the practice of teleworking for incomplete days”, “encouraging organized flex office, subject to controlling its potential social impacts”, or even “promoting active mobility or transport to avoid recourse to car on telecommuting days ”… Thierry Leboucq adds yet another:“ that of making videoconferences only when they are necessary, ”he says.
When there are only two of us, a simple phone call is enough.
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