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Homeworking Emissions Whitepaper

Last updated: 2nd February 2021

First ever open-source carbon calculation methodology for homeworking.

homeworking emissions whitepaper

The impacts of coronavirus (COVID-19) have resulted in significant changes to our daily lives; affecting family life, leisure time, the way we travel and the way we do business.

An estimated  47% of UK employees – 14 million people  – were reported to be working from home in April this year, and it is vital that corporates are accounting for the shifting boundaries of their operational emissions.

This paper, written in partnership with Lloyds Banking Group and NatWest Group and with special contribution from Bulb, defines a simple and easy to use process for calculating emissions of a workforce increasingly based at their own homes.

It provides a working methodology to complement the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol for the following three areas:

  • Emissions from office equipment
  • Emissions from heating
  • Emissions from cooling (where geographically relevant)

Download your copy here today to get one step closer to a better understanding of the full emissions impact of today’s business operations.

N.B. The information contained in this entry is provided by the above supplier, and does not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the publisher

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Whitepaper | Estimating Energy Consumption & GHG Emissions for Remote Workers

The environmental impacts of remote work.

There is no doubt that our world has seen many fundamental changes in the last year, including the resulting impacts of coronavirus on carbon emissions. Since March 2020, many workers around the world have moved to remote work from their homes due to mandated (or voluntary) closures of businesses driven by the global COVID-19 pandemic. In response, some organizations have strategically decreased their real estate footprint while actively encouraging more staff to work remotely.

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA)  2020 Global Energy Report , these recent changes have led to a decrease in commercial energy consumption and an increase in residential energy use. The IEA collected data from more than 30 countries that showed a correlation between lockdown measures and significant reductions in commercial and industrial electricity demand.

Calculating Energy Use and Emissions from Home Working

As businesses continue to determine the environmental and financial impacts of this shift to remote work, estimating the carbon footprint, energy use and associated greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of working from home is a new activity with little or no precedent although brief reference within the  GHG Protocol’s Corporate Value Chain Standard on Employee Commuting . Most companies have not included these ‘commute’ emissions to date in their annual GHG inventories.

While other organizations have published case studies and comparisons on the environmental impacts of remote work using different methodologies and assumptions, Anthesis has developed guidance on data collection and calculation approaches that may be broadly integrated into corporate inventory management processes.

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Working from home can save energy and reduce emissions. But how much?

Daniel Crow

Cite commentary

IEA (2020), Working from home can save energy and reduce emissions. But how much? , IEA, Paris https://www.iea.org/commentaries/working-from-home-can-save-energy-and-reduce-emissions-but-how-much

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As the Covid-19 crisis spread around the world, large numbers of people started working from home, with immediate and varied impacts on energy use. Oil demand shrank but residential electricity use surged. Companies such as Google and Facebook announced they would allow staff members to work remotely until at least the beginning of next year, while Twitter said its employees could continue working from home indefinitely.

This raises the question of what the implications would be for energy use and greenhouse gas emissions if a significant amount of people continued regularly working from home in the years to come. 

Our analysis shows that for people who commute by car, working from home is likely to reduce their carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) footprint if their journey to work is greater than about 6 kilometres. However, for short car commutes or those done by public transport, working from home could increase CO 2 emissions due to extra residential energy consumption.

By analysing commuter trends and labour market data, we found that if everybody able to work from home worldwide were to do so for just one day a week, it would save around 1% of global oil consumption for road passenger transport per year. Taking into account the increase this would bring in energy use by households, the overall impact on global CO 2 emissions would be an annual decline of 24 million tonnes (Mt) – equivalent to the bulk of Greater London’s annual CO 2 emissions. 

This is a notable decline but small in the context of the emissions reductions that would be necessary to put the world on a path towards meeting key long-term sustainable energy and climate goals. If everyone who can work from home were to do so more frequently than one day a week, the reduction in emissions would most likely be proportionally larger. However, a significant and sustained shift towards working from home could have impacts elsewhere in the energy system, such as those related to preferred modes of transport and demand for office space.

Lockdowns, working life and energy demand

The Covid-19 crisis has had staggering consequences for the transport sector. Government lockdowns triggered a fall of 50% to 75% in road traffic around the world. In April, with around one-third of the global population in complete lockdown, gasoline use dropped by more than 9 million barrels a day – an unprecedented fall – and demand for diesel was down by 6 million barrels a day. With up to 59% of employees in affected countries working from home and some facing redundancy, the effect on rush-hour road traffic was even more striking. Major cities saw a drop in rush-hour congestion of 65% to 95%. There were also widespread declines in air pollution from road traffic. One of the steepest was in New Delhi, where average levels of nitrogen dioxide were around two-thirds lower during lockdown compared with the weeks leading up to it.

Lockdowns have also affected residential demand for energy. Although overall electricity consumption plunged by 20% or more, energy utilities reported increased residential demand as a result of people spending more time at home. Hourly demand patterns on weekdays resembled those of a normal Sunday. In some parts of the United States, average residential electricity use on weekdays was up by 20% to 30%. In the United Kingdom, residential electricity consumption jumped by 15% in the days after the lockdown began. 

There is no guarantee that car use will remain low in the immediate aftermath of lockdowns. Prompted by perceived health risks, the shift away from public transport could continue as demand for mobility returns to normal, leading to a rebound in oil consumption. A survey in China by market research firm Ipsos reported a 57% reduction in the share of journeys made by bus and metro, but a doubling in the share made by private car. Globally, if 10% of bus trips were to be made by car instead, this would add some 700,000 barrels a day to fuel demand for cars – roughly 3% of the total amount of oil used for passenger road transport in 2019.

Average rush-hour traffic congestion in selected cities in 2019 and during lockdowns

However, the lockdown experience could give those who can work from home an increased appetite for it, leading to a lasting reduction in commuter traffic as well as a possible increase in residential energy consumption. 

If the overall level of working from home in an economy remained low, then almost all of the drop in transport energy demand would come from the commuter trips by car or motorcycle that would be avoided, since buses and trains would continue to run – albeit at slightly reduced capacity.

Average change in energy demand and CO2 emissions from one day of home working for a single household with a car commute

The impact of home-working on transport varies widely depending on the region and the time of year. In the United States, the average one-way commute by car is around 18 kilometres, and over three-quarters of car commuters travel alone, according to the US Census Bureau. In Europe, the average one-way car commute is 15 kilometres, and in China it is 8 kilometres, with large variations between urban and rural commutes. Differences in fuel efficiency also matter, as the average car in the United States consumes around 45% more fuel than the average in Europe for a trip of the same length. 

The use of mobile air conditioning in cars also has a material impact on fuel consumption, ranging between 3% of overall annual consumption in colder climates to 20% in hotter ones. Mobile air conditioning can peak at over 40% of fuel consumption in warm climates and congested traffic. We estimate that around 4% of total fuel consumption for commuting by car in the United States, China and Europe in 2019 was for mobile air conditioning.

On the residential side, a day of working from home could increase household energy consumption by between 7% and 23% compared with a day working at the office, depending on regional differences in the average size of homes, heating or cooling needs and the efficiency of appliances. In most parts of the world, the extra demand in winter is larger than in summer, due to space heating, and the energy mix in winter typically shifts more towards fossil fuels. In the US, however, the widespread use of air conditioning results in higher electricity demand in summer than in winter. In China, the prevalence of district heating – which is likely to remain switched on irrespective of whether a household is occupied or empty during the day – reduces the energy impact of working from home in the winter.

For commuting by car, a day working from home would on average reduce energy consumption and CO 2 emissions. However, for short commutes by car (less than 6 kilometres in the United States, 3 kilometres in the European Union, and 2 kilometres in China), as well as for those made by public transport, working from home could lead to a small increase in emissions as a result of extra residential energy use. The net effect would depend on the residential fuel mix. For instance in China, the net drop in energy demand translates into only a small decrease in CO 2 emissions – especially in winter – because of the relatively high emissions intensity of the power sector as well as the widespread use of coal for space heating and oil for water heating and cooking. 

The impact of working from home on global energy demand and emissions

At the household level, the impact of working from home on energy demand varies widely according to many factors related to the season and the region. But what would be the global effect if working from home became a trend for societies at large? The answer to this question depends in part on how many people can work from home.

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, an estimated 8% 1 of the global workforce was working exclusively or mainly from home, with large differences among countries, according to the International Labour Organization . For example, around 5% of workers in China were working from home, compared with 14% in the Netherlands.

Based on an analysis done by Jonathan Dingel and Brent Neiman at the University of Chicago as well as work by the International Labour Organization and others 2 , we estimate that around 20% of jobs globally could potentially be done from home. This ranges from around 10% in sub-Saharan Africa to more than 45% in the wealthiest European countries. Overall, there is a positive correlation between the potential to work from home and GDP per capita. This reflects the differences in economic and occupational structures of countries, as well as digital readiness (e.g. broadband internet access, computer ownership), and other structural factors (e.g. housing situation, other types of home-based work).

Change in global CO2 emissions and final energy consumption by fuel in the “home-working” scenario

Working from home will normally reduce net energy demand for a household that commutes by car. But for commuters taking public transport, it is likely to increase net energy demand, although regional and seasonal differences are significant. Taking this into account, however, we find that during an average year, the overall energy saved as a result of less commuting is still around four times larger than the increase in residential energy consumption.

On a global level, oil savings 3 are around 11.9 million tonnes of oil equivalent (Mtoe) per year – or about 250,000 barrels a day, corresponding to about 1% of road passenger transport consumption. After including the extra residential demand 4 , overall energy use falls by around 8.5 Mtoe, resulting in a drop of 24 Mt in annual CO 2 emissions. 

The scenario described here assumes a relatively modest one day per week of working from home. If this were to become more frequent, the impacts on private transport and residential energy demand would increase proportionally, but it could also have an increasing number of effects elsewhere in the energy system. Given that only one-fifth of workers can do their jobs remotely, even several days of home working per week would probably have only a small direct impact on public transport. However, fewer commuters could lead to less congestion, faster moving traffic and a possible shift away from public transport. This could either reduce or increase oil demand depending on the specific circumstances.   

The longer term impacts on energy and emissions of a trend towards greater working from home are uncertain. Over time, a more significant shift to home working could also result in a reduction in demand for office space and energy for commercial buildings, and therefore a greater overall reduction in energy consumption and CO 2 emissions. However, habitual home working could lead to people living farther from their place of work, potentially offsetting the demand reductions in energy for commuting.

Additional contributions to this commentary were provided by Apostolos Petropoulos , George Kamiya , Yannick Monschauer and Kevin Lane .

This includes employees who telework, as well as a wide range of occupations including industrial outworkers, artisans, self-employed business owners, and freelancers. Among employees, about 3% were working exclusively or mainly from their home before the Covid-19 pandemic. Source: ILO (2020).

Boeri et al. (2020) ; Brynjolfsson et al. (2020) ; Eurostat (2018) ; Saltiel (2020) .

These savings are estimated by combining the country-level potential for home working with employment data and regional characteristics of commuter travel, as well as average commute distances and vehicle efficiencies.

The potential increase in residential energy consumption is based on combining a regional bottom-up analysis of residential demand by end-use and fuel with week-end and weekday electricity load curves, the emissions intensity of electricity and employment data from the International Labour Organization.  

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Homeworking emissions – Ecoact whitepaper

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The Journey to Net Zero: Reducing Scope 3 Employee Commuting and Homeworking Emissions

A summary of the key takeaways from a recent webinar on reducing scope 3 employee commuting and homeworking emissions..

Shoosmiths is delighted to be sponsoring United Nation Global Compact Network (UNGC) UK’s series of webinars on ‘Reducing Scope 3 Emissions’.

  • Companies must set one or more near-term target(s) that collectively cover at least two thirds of Scope 3 emissions for near-term targets. When setting long-term net zero targets in alignment with the SBTi’s Net Zero Standard , targets must cover 90% of Scope 3 emissions.
  • Employee commuting emissions must be included in science-based targets, but inclusion of homeworking emissions is optional (though advised). When selecting a base year for targets, a company should select the first year for which they have an accurate and representative footprint.
  • Gathering the number of full-time employees (FTE) per region.
  • Collecting data on the number of FTEs working in office vs FTEs working from home.
  • Referencing public transport data from the European Commission on Transport . This breaks-down the EU and international percentage averages for bus, rail, tram and metro use.
  • Examining private transport data from ‘ Japan Guide ’, a tourism website which has conducted surveys on commuting times in several countries worldwide. This is for car, motorbikes, walking and cycling.
  • Calculating average speed of transport, using data from the Mobility in Cities Database .
  • Conducting employee surveys to ensure that company-specific data is aligned with the collected data.
  • To reduce employee commuting emissions, NatWest has an EV100 commitment and a home charger partnership with Octopus Energy . Lloyds has developed a carbon calculator to define what colleagues can do to reduce their commuting emissions. Additionally, they provide robust infrastructure and incentives (such as offering the cycle2work scheme ) to facilitate employee cycling and electric vehicle use.
  • Office equipment (average energy consumption is taken from CIBSE Guide F )
  • Heating energy
  • Cooling energy
  • NatWest are using Giki Zero to engage and educate colleagues.
  • Lloyds engage their colleagues through challenges and activities which encourage internal discussions about ways homeworking emissions can be reduced.
  • Both Lloyds and NatWest provide advice to employees on switching to renewable energy suppliers.
  • Calculation assumptions are continually reviewed to ensure that they best reflect employee behaviour. Assumptions should be organisation-specific and accuracy should be optimised by collecting sufficient data.

This information is for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. It is recommended that specific professional advice is sought before acting on any of the information given. © Shoosmiths LLP 2024.

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To register for other events in the ‘Reducing Scope 3 Emissions’ webinar series, please visit our website.

Read the latest articles and commentary from Shoosmiths or you can explore our full insights library.  

EcoAct launches first ever open-source carbon calculation to overcome remote working emissions gap

By Susan Brownlow   |   7th October, 2020

LONDON, 7th October 2020 – International climate change consultancy EcoAct alongside major corporates today published an open source methodology for companies that need to calculate the impacts of an increasing number of employees working from home on corporate carbon emissions. The paper, written in collaboration with EcoAct clients NatWest Group and Lloyds Banking Group and following a roundtable consultation with six major corporates, aims to define a simple and easy to use process for calculating emissions of a workforce increasingly based at their own homes as a result of the global COVID-19 pandemic. An estimated 47% of UK employees – 14 million people – were reported to be working from home in April this year, and as we head towards the winter months and inevitable increases in energy consumption for heating and lighting, it is vital that corporates are accounting for the shifting boundaries of their operational emissions and have a way to reliably assess them for 2020 and beyond. Research carried out in July 2020 by UK energy supplier Bulb in partnership with EcoAct, estimated that UK firms could face a 'black hole’ of 470,000 tonnes of carbon this year due to unaccounted energy use incurred by employees at home, potentially undermining the UK's long-term net zero emissions ambition. To put this into perspective, this is equivalent to flying around the world over 84,700 times in economy class. This new paper sets out a base case for three areas of emissions generated from homeworking (emissions from office equipment, heating energy and cooling energy) and provides the calculations companies need to robustly assess these emissions in their 2020 reporting. Fiona Cannon, Group Sustainable Business Director, Lloyds Banking Group said: “Even before the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, we have supported an agile approach for our colleagues, enabling them to work from home and look at different working patterns. While the Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in a further reduction in our carbon emissions, most notably through less travel, we recognise the need to balance this against the additional emissions caused by colleagues working from home. This report is a valuable step in navigating the challenge of measuring carbon emissions associated with home working and supports organisations in taking action to tackle the threat of climate change.” NatWest Group agrees that “as our ways of working continue to change through this pandemic and beyond, it is essential that companies understand the full impact such changes are having on their carbon emissions. “This year we announced ambitious targets to reduce our climate impact, which include making our operations net zero by the end of 2020. Homeworking emissions are currently excluded from our footprint calculations due to the historic lack of a clear methodology and the associated data collection challenges. Given the significant shift in working patterns seen in 2020, we feel it is important to be able to assess the materiality of the displaced emissions, enabling us to make better decisions about how we tackle them in the future.” Most large companies choose to disclose emissions in line with the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) protocol standards. Under the GHG protocol, homeworking is currently an optional disclosure covered in the Employee Commuting (Category 7) section. EcoAct’s methodology seeks to supplement and support the GHG protocol by providing a standardised format which businesses can cite in their disclosures. The full report is accessible here: https://info.eco-act.com/en/homeworking-emissions-whitepaper-2020 About EcoAct EcoAct, an Atos company, is a international sustainability consultancy and project developer, headquartered in Paris, with 160 employees in offices across France, the United Kingdom, Spain, the United States and Kenya. The company has unmatched depth and breadth in delivering holistic solutions to enable businesses to reduce their carbon emissions while driving commercial performance. EcoAct has undertaken carbon reduction and sustainability projects for some of the world’s leading brands while also developing and partnering with carbon offset, biodiversity and economic development programmes across Africa, Asia, China and South America. EcoAct is a CDP gold partner, a founding member of ICROA, a strategic partner in the implementation of the Gold Standard for the Global Goals and reports to the UN Global Compact. For more information, visit www.eco-act.com Media contacts For a copy of the report, more information, images or interview requests please contact: Susan Brownlow PR Consultant EcoAct [email protected] Tel: 07739 456292

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homeworking emissions whitepaper

Homeworking Calculator

Homeworking carbon calculator.

This homeworking carbon footprint calculator is a tool designed to help individuals understand the carbon footprint associated with working from home. It can be a valuable resource in today's world, where remote work has become increasingly common.

Tell us about your homeworking

Carbon emission, total emissions, would you like to offset with blocicarbon, minimum order.

To calculate this, the number of FTE (Full-time Equivalent) working hours of which its staff were working from home is multiplied by the conversion factor.

Please note that the heating conversion factor has already taken into consideration both heating months and non-heating months.

The homeworking conversion factors are calculated using the methodology from the Homeworking emission Whitepaper (EcoAct, 2020)

homeworking emissions whitepaper

Carbon Footprint Facts about Homeworking

Commuting Savings : By working from home, the average UK employee saves about 0.86 tonnes of CO2 per year by not commuting. That's equivalent to the emissions from driving 2,240 miles in an average car.

Lighting : If you work near a window, you can significantly reduce your carbon footprint by relying on natural light instead of electric lighting. Switching to LED lights can also reduce your lighting-related carbon footprint by up to 85%.

Overall Impact : The Carbon Trust estimates that flexible working practices, like homeworking, could save UK businesses and employees over 3 million tonnes of CO2 per year by 2030. This is equivalent to taking over 1 million cars off the road.

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Aisling O’Reilly, Projects Coordinator (Energy) asks: what is the impact of homeworking on our carbon emissions and will the future of work be better or worse for our planet?

The past 19 months have changed the way we work forever. The Covid-19 pandemic forced the majority of us to work from home and overall, we liked it. The University’s Home and Hybrid Working Survey showed that over 90% of staff are interested in hybrid working in future. But while we have adjusted to the new normal with Covid-19, another issue has not gone away, the climate crisis.

Early reports

In the early stages of the pandemic, there was a belief that the transition to working from home was better for the environment. With the daily commute eradicated and no offices to heat or cool, it could easily be assumed that working from home was an energy-saving solution for organisations. However, this may not be the case, as home working increased our need for home heating. Organisations took various approaches to estimate the carbon impact of this lifestyle change, leading to early reports that came to very different conclusions.

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Zero Waste Scotland Report

Zero Waste Scotland

In May 2020, Zero Waste Scotland reported that from March onwards, when homeworking began, their daily carbon footprint reduced by around 73%. This was as a result of avoided commuting and corporate travel.

Zero Waste Scotland’s report

Other organisations

Conversely, other organisations, such as the environmental consultancy, WSP, reported that a worker who is based at home throughout the year could have a carbon footprint that is 80% higher than a typical office worker.

The high footprint was mainly due to emissions from central heating over the winter months. This figure of 80% was later debunked. It failed to account for multiple occupancy within a household, making emissions seem higher than what they were in reality.

To give an example, if a worker moved from the office to their home during lockdown, which was previously empty and unheated, then the use of the central heating during the day would be classed as additional. But if that worker was working from a home that was occupied and centrally heated before lockdown, then this wouldn’t impact the home heating requirements.

Office vs Home Working: How we can save our carbon footprint (WSP)

A university perspective

Bournemouth university.

Universities have also been investigating the impact of lockdown on their carbon footprint. With Bournemouth University being one of the first to share their findings. They investigated the carbon footprint for April – June 2020 (the period of the first lockdown) and compared it to April – June of previous, non-lockdown years. In non-lockdown years, the largest carbon footprint was from commuting, followed by utilities and then staff business travel.

During lockdown, the university reduced its total carbon footprint by 29%. This was due to the absence of commuting. They also noted that despite the completely shut campuses, the decrease in utilities was lower than expected, with a 45% drop in electricity and a 51% drop in gas. This highlights that substantial amounts of energy are needed to maintain university campuses even in the absence of staff and students.

Cutting-edge research has assessed the carbon footprint of Bournemouth University during the COVID-19 lockdown

The University of Edinburgh

The University of Edinburgh has not yet determined the complete impact of lockdown on its carbon footprint. However, using a methodology produced by EcoAct, the Department for Social Responsibility and Sustainability has conducted a short study, using the University’s Estates Department as a representative example.

EcoAct Homeworking emissions whitepaper

Bar chart showing the impact of different ways of working on carbon emissions.

Carbon impact chart

The carbon impact, in tonnes CO₂e for an Estates Department staff member under different working scenarios

  • Office-based:  1.03 tCO₂e
  • Hybrid-work (two days working from home):  0.99 tCO₂e
  • Home-based:   0.91 tCO₂e  

Carbon figures are based on the Estates Department, located at 9-11 and 13 Infirmary Street, housing approximately 300 members of staff. Figures account for energy consumption both at home and in the office, multiple occupancy as well as emissions from commuting. Calculated for the period August 2019 – July 2020.

As you can see above, office-based working full-time has the highest carbon footprint, home-based has the lowest, with hybrid working sitting somewhere in the middle.

There are some interesting things to note with these figures:

  • The home-based figure notes that the Estates Department buildings are still consuming energy even while relatively unoccupied.
  • With less than a quarter of university staff driving to work, the carbon savings for avoided commuting are not as significant for the University of Edinburgh as they are for other organisations.

Getting the balance right between transport and heating

Research recently published through ClimateXChange, on behalf of the Scottish Government, has provided more clarity on the carbon impact of homeworking.

Some of the overarching findings are outlined below:

  • Domestic heating is a large emission source that can offset much of the transport emissions savings of home working.
  • Larger properties with oil heating represent the worst place to work from home in terms of emissions.
  • The lowest emission future is one where people commuting short to medium distances do so by public and active travel and continue to commute to the office, while people who commute long distances shift to working from home.
  • The lowest emission working behaviour is a short commute to work in an energy-efficient office.

Emissions impact of home working in Scotland (ClimateXChange)

Image of tenement buildings in Edinburgh

Homeworking emissions and the impact of Covid-19 on climate change is an area of research that is still evolving. However, it is becoming clear that the carbon impact of homeworking can be either positive or negative, depending on your home’s energy efficiency and your commute.

Home energy is something we can control. Check out my five tips for managing your heat at home this winter and keep an eye on Home Energy Scotland, to see what grants are available for energy-saving improvements.

To a degree, we can also control our commute, choosing active transport if we’re close to the office, avoiding the car for those commutes which are longer and keeping an eye out for forward-thinking initiatives like the NearHome Project, which aims to retrofit public spaces to create out-of-town alternatives to city-centre offices.

Another thing that is clear is that we are not alone, workplaces around the world are changing and with that comes pitfalls and opportunities. By keeping the climate crisis and our carbon impact at the forefront of our minds, we can make decisions that drive us towards a net-zero future, rather than farther off course.

  • Five tips for keeping your Edinburgh home warm this winter
  • Home Energy Scotland
  • NearHome Project

homeworking emissions whitepaper

Posted by Aisling O'Reilly

3rd November 2021

hybrid • hybrid working

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Great post. Keep posting such kind of info on your page. Am really impressed by your blog.

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In Russia’s Far East, a New Face of Resistance to Putin’s Reign

As the protests swell in the city of Khabarovsk, 4,000 miles from Moscow, residents who had never before found a public outlet for anger are becoming activists.

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By Anton Troianovski

KHABAROVSK, Russia — Valentin Kvashnikov, a construction worker and recovering heroin addict, lives near the railway depot in a wooden shack, with a plastic trash can in the corner that serves as his toilet.

But he has risen from obscurity into a celebrity in far eastern Russia by helping to energize the antigovernment demonstrations that have gotten bigger and bolder in the past three weeks.

“It’s him!” a passing woman, Natasha Gordiyenko, said after she spotted Mr. Kvashnikov outside his house on Sunday, before unleashing a tirade of profanity against Russian officialdom.

The protests in Khabarovsk reached well into the tens of thousands over the weekend, establishing this distant city — some 4,000 miles from Moscow — as the site of the biggest popular challenge to President Vladimir V. Putin’s authority that a city in Russia’s far-flung regions has produced in his 20 years in power.

The protests have no leader and few concrete demands. But they have electrified a quiet city half a world away from the capital, turning apolitical residents into activists overnight and showing how quickly the embers of discontent over corruption, poverty and the stranglehold of Mr. Putin’s rule can ignite a conflagration.

“It’s not that there is something wrong with us,” said Elena Okhrimenko, a retired accountant, who has been protesting with homemade signs along with her husband, a retired truck driver. “We realized that there is something wrong with the country.”

The involvement of protesters from a broad cross-section of the city, an eight-hour flight from Moscow and only 15 miles from China, is a new kind of warning for the Kremlin. For years, large-scale protests have mainly been limited to Moscow and St. Petersburg, making them easy to dismiss as the work of an out-of-touch urban elite.

Yet the well of popular anger so far from the capital undercuts the Kremlin’s narrative of Mr. Putin’s Russia, which he has essentially ruled for the past two decades.

Mr. Putin won a heavily orchestrated referendum less than a month ago that rewrote the Constitution to allow him to stay in office until 2036. But many analysts have called the vote fraudulent, and while pollsters have identified rising discontent among Russians in recent years, the anger has never spilled into the streets with such force outside the nation’s biggest cities.

“For now, society doesn’t appear to be so radicalized as to storm the gates, if you will,” said Tatiana Stanovaya, a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Moscow Center, a research organization focused on politics and policy. “But from my point of view, that is only a question of time if the authorities are not able to see what is really happening in the country.”

Mr. Kvashnikov, long struggling with poverty and grousing at the state’s injustice, turned into a bullhorn-carrying cheerleader of protesters who have marched through the city each day since July 11 in defense of their popular governor, Sergei I. Furgal, who was arrested by the federal authorities this month.

The protesters gather in Lenin Square in front of the marble-sheathed hulk of the regional government headquarters — known locally as the White House — before spilling into the road for a three-mile loop above the sprawling Amur River.

Cars honk in support, drivers offer high-fives and marveling bystanders — the ice-cream vendor, the cosmetics shop security guard, the officer in front of the railway-company building — have their phones out to record the scene.

“I never believed our people were so united,” Mr. Kvashnikov said, describing the protests.

The protests have drawn their ranks from political novices like Elena Skorodumova, a 23-year-old kindergarten teacher’s assistant. On July 9, she was scrolling through a social media page devoted to local news and pets when she saw a post about the arrest of Mr. Furgal, the governor. In a sharp blue suit, Mr. Furgal was pictured being led away by a masked Federal Security Service officer in camouflage gear, a gloved hand pressing down on the governor’s head.

Ms. Skorodumova recalls that she got goose bumps from her anger. The “only way” to support the governor, she wrote in the comments, was to “go out in the streets.”

The arrest of the governor, on suspicion of having organized murders some 15 years ago, seemed to many residents a blatant power play by the Kremlin to get rid of a regional leader seen as insufficiently loyal.

Mr. Furgal, a former scrap metal trader, defeated the incumbent, a widely disliked ally of Mr. Putin’s, in the 2018 regional election. Then Mr. Furgal won over residents with a populist style that his staff assiduously documented on Instagram .

Officially dismissed by Mr. Putin last week, Mr. Furgal had highlighted how he set aside millions of dollars for school lunches, cut his own pay and put the governor’s yacht on the market.

More calls for protest over his arrest coursed through social media, often in the coded language of invitations for a stroll or “feeding the pigeons” in the central square.

On July 11, a Saturday, Ms. Skorodumova, the teacher’s assistant, packed sanitizing wipes and a toothbrush in case she got arrested and went to Lenin Square. She had never protested before.

Tens of thousands of her fellow residents also came. And they keep coming back.

Mr. Kvashnikov, the construction worker, found a wellspring of people who shared his disdain for Mr. Putin and what he sees as a system that enriches the few. He has scarcely enough money to eat, he said, and had been involved in criminal groups and done time in prison in an earlier life.

“You rabid dog, why don’t you deal with what is under your own nose?” he said of Mr. Putin. “Your people are hungry. Look at how your people live.”

Mr. Kvashnikov drew the attention of the many YouTubers livestreaming the protests by his almost daily attendance, his loud chants and his readiness to defy the police. In one widely viewed video , he can be seen shouting at a police officer that the Russian Constitution guarantees freedom of assembly. The crowd next to him starts chanting “We’re the ones in charge here!”

The crowds of demonstrators have grown for three consecutive Saturdays, with some estimates putting last weekend’s crowd at more than 50,000 — a spurt of spontaneous political activism that is rare in Russia.

Alyona Panteleyeva, 22, and her mother run a cramped sewing workshop and fabric store. She said she had never been involved in politics until one of her employees suggested producing face masks that say “I Am/We Are Furgal.”

For the past week, the workshop has been producing about 50 masks a day, and Ms. Panteleyeva said she was selling them at cost over Instagram and in her store. The first person who bought one, she said, paid in cash marked with a pro-Furgal slogan; such bills are increasingly in circulation in the city, she explained.

“I am sure that the protests will continue until the citizens get what they want,” including a public trial for Mr. Furgal in Khabarovsk, rather than in Moscow, she said. “We are fighting for the truth.”

Mr. Furgal’s popularity as a regional elected official is unique, so the Khabarovsk protests are not likely to be replicated elsewhere, the social scientist Sergei Belanovsky wrote recently . But they show an increased willingness to protest in response to any number of slights.

“Given the overall unfavorable economic and social situation, the reasons to protest keep growing in number,” Mr. Belanovsky said. “The fabric of the state has thinned, and to tear it requires less and less effort.”

Mr. Putin remains in control of the country’s powerful security services, and, though in decline, his approval rating stands at 60 percent . A major question is to what extent the Kremlin will be prepared to use force to put down protests — it has done so in Moscow but not yet in Khabarovsk. At one point on Monday, a sole police officer followed the column of roughly 1,000 protesters, apparently to keep the cars at bay.

Many protesters assume that some police officers sympathize with them. Analysts also say that the Kremlin seems to be hoping the protests will fade on their own, and the state media has largely ignored them. Meanwhile, the authorities seem to be putting pressure on some activists.

Late Sunday evening in Lenin Square, videos showed Mr. Kvashnikov haranguing a man in plainclothes who he said had threatened him, then being wrestled to the ground by other people in plainclothes; he was carried by his ankles, chest and elbows to a waiting police car.

Hours later, the authorities released Mr. Kvashnikov. Waiting video bloggers were there to record his walk from the police station. Mr. Kvashnikov had already let his fans know that he was taking a break from protesting, for his family’s safety.

“Don’t be afraid and keep at it, friends,” Mr. Kvashnikov said in a video message recorded on Sunday. “Most important, don’t abandon what we started together.”

Oleg Matsnev contributed research from Moscow.

Anton Troianovski has been a Moscow correspondent for The New York Times since September 2019. He was previously Moscow bureau chief of The Washington Post and spent nine years with The Wall Street Journal in Berlin and New York. More about Anton Troianovski

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