No form of transport requires less energy than telecommuting. Why aren't there Zoom/MS Teams/Slack bill-boards on 101 and 880? Where is everyone's outrage at needlessly requiring people to move themselves into offices and the congestsion, waste, and environmental damage it causes?
Ask HN: Why isn't remote work advertised as a pro environment initiative?
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Re: Ask HN: Why isn't remote work advertised as a pro environment initiative?
#2Who is supposed to be such an advertiser and such an advertisee?
Re: Ask HN: Why isn't remote work advertised as a pro environment initiative?
#3Who is supposed to be such an advertiser and such an advertisee?
> Zoom/MS Teams/Slack
Re: Ask HN: Why isn't remote work advertised as a pro environment initiative?
#4What makes you so sure that commuting is more environmentally harmful than datacenters full of hardware and the construction and transport of said hardware and mining of raw materials for the hardware?
Additionally, lack of commuting incentivizes un-environmental and inefficient suburban sprawl.
I am not saying that's the case, but I don't buy that it's a strictly pro-environment win a-priori.
If anything commuting is the daily theft of an hour of everyone's life, more so for drivers. "Get an hour of your life back every day" should be all the marketing that's ever needed.
Re: Ask HN: Why isn't remote work advertised as a pro environment initiative?
#5My guess would be that the target audience that buys these products (read companies) don’t really care about the environment
Re: Ask HN: Why isn't remote work advertised as a pro environment initiative?
#6I'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
Re: Ask HN: Why isn't remote work advertised as a pro environment initiative?
#7Similarly, 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 say, “but then people who rely on public transit for things other than commuting to work would be hurt,” note that most public transit currently doesn’t serve those people well because it’s focused on work-related commuting patterns. Example: https://www.ualberta.ca/folio/2022/01/public-transit-service....
Re: Ask HN: Why isn't remote work advertised as a pro environment initiative?
#8I'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
>heating an office space with 500+ people is much more efficient than heating 500 individual houses
Citation needed. I would argue its very hard to make any general statement about this. In my case the office is much more wasteful than the space I use for remote work for a multitude of reasons.
Re: Ask HN: Why isn't remote work advertised as a pro environment initiative?
#9What makes you so sure that commuting is more environmentally harmful than datacenters full of hardware and the construction and transport of said hardware and mining of raw materials for the hardware? Additionally, lack of commuting incentivizes un-environmental and inefficient suburban sprawl. I am not saying that's the case, but I don't buy that it's a strictly pro-environment win a-priori. If anything commuting i…
I don't know about you but we still use the internet/zoom etc. in the office so you still need datacenters
>lack of commuting incentivizes un-environmental and inefficient suburban sprawl
I dont understand this point, IMO commuting leads to more suburban sprawl? Also i think this is a very USA-centric problem.
Re: Ask HN: Why isn't remote work advertised as a pro environment initiative?
#10I'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
>heating an office space with 500+ people is much more efficient than heating 500 individual houses Citation needed. I would argue its very hard to make any general statement about this. In my case the office is much more wasteful than the space I use for remote work for a multitude of reasons.
I said I'm not convinced, it obviously isn't a general thing.
A friend of mine spends 500+ euros per month on gas for heating since he works from home, no way on earth his office uses 500 per person and per month on heat