Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Why isn't remote work advertised as a pro environment initiative?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 508 posts

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't remote work advertised as a pro environment initiative?

#41

Post by humanrebar »

m000 wrote: post #36
rr888 wrote: post #26

I live in a small apartment a short train ride from the office. It isn't big enough to work from home. If I worked from home I'd get a big house in the suburbs, and buy a car to get around. My environmental footprint would be much bigger. Edit - if I didn't have kids I'd totally have a beach house and a mountain house to live in. Maybe in different countries too.

Also, working from home would reduce the demand for the train routes. This in turn would mean that the route would be scheduled more sparsely, or even discontinued*. Which would force more people to use a car. *And this is why management and operation of public utilities should be policy-driven rather than profit-driven.

If they're not commuting, they're also using the car less.

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't remote work advertised as a pro environment initiative?

#42

Post by chitowneats »

itake wrote: post #38
rr888 wrote: post #26

I live in a small apartment a short train ride from the office. It isn't big enough to work from home. If I worked from home I'd get a big house in the suburbs, and buy a car to get around. My environmental footprint would be much bigger. Edit - if I didn't have kids I'd totally have a beach house and a mountain house to live in. Maybe in different countries too.

> If I worked from home I'd get a big house in the suburbs, and buy a car to get around. My environmental footprint would be much bigger. For me, WFH means I can walk/bike/drive to the local coffee shop or public library to work, but still live in a cramped studio apartment.

The amount of productivity I lose when trying to work this way, hunched over my laptop screen in a public place, is immense. An office, downtown or at home, is absolutely necessary. Are you a software engineer?

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't remote work advertised as a pro environment initiative?

#43

Post by watwut »

lm28469 wrote: post #34
mcv wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that € 500 for just the working hours? Because homes are also generally heated for other uses than work. Those reasons don't go away if you work at the office. If you've got a spouse working from home, or kids coming from school, that house is going to be heated anyway.

> Because homes are also generally heated for other uses than work I've never heard of anyone heating their home when not in it, given the other comments it seems like it's the norm, weird

> The most common way of heating here is that you have radiators set up

Most people here would need to actively tweak it every time the leave the house and every time they come in. And do it separately for each room. Just from the way how heating works - you have valve in each room that you turn in order to adjust heating.

Of course no one does it every day twice.

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't remote work advertised as a pro environment initiative?

#44

Post by neutronicus »

lm28469 wrote: post #37
rg111 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

500 individual houses would be heated anyway.

Why would you heat a house if you're not in it. Do people really do that ?

Well, you may live with other people who are in it when you're not, causing it to be heated anyway.

But I guess the answer would be that people can't abide the thought of one uncomfortable minute in their own home, and don't bother figuring out how to program the thermostat.

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't remote work advertised as a pro environment initiative?

#45

Post by kayodelycaon »

adam_arthur wrote: post #35
lm28469 wrote: post #6

I'm not convinced it is a net positive in the end. Especially for big companies, heating an office space with 500+ people is probably much more efficient than heating 500 individual houses for example Not everyone commute with an ICE vehicle too

Yeah, but many offices are likely to be converted to other uses, rather than persist with partial occupation. Hotel, residential etc People often say it’s cost prohibitive, but it’s been done many times before, and valuations of Offices will get so depressed that conversions begin to look very lucrative

Large office buildings do not convert into hotels or residential all that well. Most of them have all of their plumbing and utilities in the central core. That's not easy to retrofit.

They may also not be up to code for residential use.

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't remote work advertised as a pro environment initiative?

#46

Post by Someone1234 »

Because corporations are doing the majority of that pro-environmental advertising. I mean that both in terms of companies making changes (both real and greenwashing) and the News/Media corporations reporting on it.

Telecommuting could be absolutely massive for reduced emissions, could bring down urban house prices, improve inter-family relationships, and revitalized suburban neighborhoods (e.g. more walkable areas). Plus increase wealth to relatively poor rural areas.

Even some corporations are starting to realize that telecommuting isn't their enemy, but large ships move slowly, and recently we've been seeing a lot of "return to work" used as a way to conduct layoffs with lower negative PR/stock tanking. This isn't a byproduct but a goal of return-to-work (e.g. see Musk's text message conversation during Twitter-lawsuit discovery).

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't remote work advertised as a pro environment initiative?

#49

Post by onion2k »

rr888 wrote: post #26

I live in a small apartment a short train ride from the office. It isn't big enough to work from home. If I worked from home I'd get a big house in the suburbs, and buy a car to get around. My environmental footprint would be much bigger. Edit - if I didn't have kids I'd totally have a beach house and a mountain house to live in. Maybe in different countries too.

If I'm reading this correctly, you choose to live in a small apartment, suffer the commute on a train, and work in an office you'd prefer not to be in, just so you don't have to move to a big house in the suburbs with your kids.

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't remote work advertised as a pro environment initiative?

#50

Post by goosedragons »

simonmesmith wrote: post #7

Similarly, I often wonder why cities don’t promote local telecommuting over building expensive public transportation infrastructure. Building one kilometre of subway costs anywhere from around $100 million to $1.6 billion ( https://marroninstitute.nyu.edu/events/how-much-does-it-cost... ), and then requires subsidies to run. Why not use this money to provide incentives for people to telecommute? And while some might…

Yeah let's increase car dependence. Great idea.

If people are mainly working from home then we can redirect public transit from business parks or whatever towards places people still want to go (e.g. shopping, nightlife, events) but without a car. Starving already often underfunded public transit is not the answer.

Why not use the hundreds of millions spent on highways to subsidize people to work from home instead? Most commuters in North America are not using public transit but highways.

Post reply on HN