By Lisa Salsberg, Managing Associate

The future of work, and the positive and negative changes that could come about for global sustainability, was a popular topic of speculation and research long before this last year. With the shock of the pandemic, however, a heightened focus on work from home has emerged.

Many organizations that historically dismissed work from home models, were forced to shift quickly and re-think how day-to-day business could be operationalized with employees working remotely. Over the past 14 months, the work from home phenomena has been a strong contributor to decreased carbon emissions, and there has been widespread speculation that work from home and the resulting positive impacts will continue post pandemic.

This forced uptake of work from home, however, is not without its downsides. In particular, it has contributed to a flight of migration from urban areas that will ultimately have negative impacts on sustainability and climate. As people move to more suburban and exurban locations, dependence on the automobile will increase (for nonwork related travel), transit usage will decrease and pressure will mount towards sprawl, new highway investments and rural development.

Interestingly, the post pandemic work from home model seems to be evolving. A recent Statistics Canada survey found that a little over 40% of recent teleworkers expressed a preference for eventually working outside of the home for half their hours. Google indicated that post pandemic “employees would be expected to work at least three days a week in the office for “collaboration days” while working from home the other days”. Such a model has the potential to significantly increase the need for car travel for workers who moved away from cities with the expectation of continued work from home.

Fundamentally transport behaviours are determined by where we live and work. So while many people have worked from home this past year, with positive impacts on carbon emissions, the negative impacts for VKTs may be a significant consequence of the flight from cities that has ensued as a result.