In a video interview with green web design and sustainable business pioneer, Tom Greenwood shares the story of how he struggled to motivate staff to provide their energy requirements as part of the B-Corp certification process.  

The outcome was more positive than he had anticipated, having a multiplier knock-on effect as entire households, not just individual employees, moved to renewable energy sources. 

Regardless of how or when the GHG Scopes incorporate emissions associated with remote working, forward thinking, climate-aware businesses should be working towards calculating their remote workers’ digital carbon footprints as part of a larger project to understand the entire remote carbon footprint of employees. 

Beyond the obvious carbon-accountability reasons for this, employers have an opportunity to better support their staff’s remote-working costs during the ongoing energy crisis while also helping proactively address a nascent mental health topic – eco-anxiety. 

Remote workers and eco-anxiety 

Admittedly, it might seem a stretch to include eco-anxiety in an article about remote digital carbon footprints, however, this is one area of carbon accounting that can have an unexpected positive social impact. It is also an excellent example of how our global challenges are often inextricably linked.   

Grist reported that the trends for climate anxiety searches rose by more than 565% between 2020 and 2021 compared to the 16 years before. In May 2022, the Smithsonian Magazine wrote about a large-scale study into the topic, in which climate anxiety is identified as an area of escalating concern, especially in younger generations. 

The interview identified that a significant part of the solution is to allow people to come together, share their concerns and to feel empowered to make changes as part of a solution bigger than themselves. 

This is where engaging with employees on the topic of digital carbon footprints can find a three-way symbiosis between companies, workers and the planet.  

For the company, working with remote workers gives them important data and insights to better manage and report on their carbon impact, which links with their broader sustainability strategy. 

From the employee perspective, if implemented carefully, this can come across less as invasive activity tracking and monitoring, but rather a joined-up approach to help reduce their, and their employer’s collective environmental impact. 

Further, some of the actions that employees can take to reduce their digital carbon footprints are relatively easy and seemingly minor, yet at company-wide scale, still impactful. This provides individuals the opportunity to get involved in something bigger, but with relatively small steps. 

The ability to take small steps as part of a larger campaign is crucial in helping individuals overcome climate hesitation and can be the catalyst for further personal climate actions. 

Clearly the steps above benefit the company and individual in several ways, all of which could lead to a collectively meaningful reduced environmental impact. 

Accounting for remote worker digital carbon footprints 

When calculating the remote worker’s contribution to the company’s carbon footprint, employers should look to gather the following types of information: 

Of course, when it comes to digital carbon footprints, we’re less concerned about the incremental lighting and heating consumption, but still very much interested in how much energy is from renewable providers. 

From a technology utilisation point of view, workplace tools allow for centralised reporting on time used. Beyond this, as Tom Greenwood mentioned in the interview above, staff can be incentivised to provide regular updates which can be anonymised and aggregated to create a holistic snapshot. 

It should be noted though, that an employer’s efforts to understand their worker’s activities remotely, especially at home, must be undertaken with caution. Information gathering needs to be conducted with care and consent, as to avoid privacy fears over the reach of an employer into the private space of an employee.  

Reducing remote digital carbon footprints 

As covered in more detail in the previous articles on procurement, on prem IT and cloud, the biggest impact in reducing our digital carbon footprints comes from careful responsible procurement practices, increasing lifetime use of IT equipment and reducing the need and demand for new tech. 

Beyond that, we must be very mindful about the energy we consume, and therefore the carbon we emit when using our technologies. Through becoming more aware of what we use, and how small changes in behaviour can have collectively large impacts, we can identify how to tackle wasted energy. 

Reducing energy waste can help us collectively reduce significant amounts of needless carbon emissions. Best of all, some of the areas we can make an immediate carbon impact can be achieved with only a minor impact on our working comfort or productivity. 

In general, look to challenge ingrained digital and technology habits that inadvertently waste energy. Some ideas for thought are: