City Research Online

Abstract

With the increasing popularity of teleworking after the Covid-19 pandemic and the urgent threat of climate change, there is growing interest in its potential to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from transport. While some studies have explored the environmental benefits of teleworking, most fail to address the significant uncertainty associated with it. Few of these studies have applied sophisticated mathematical methods to explore how we can maximize the environmental benefits of teleworking, and even fewer have considered the distributions of input variables. Our study aims to fill these gaps based on historical data observations.

This study employs simulation, global sensitivity analysis and scenario analysis methods to address the uncertainty and identify the most important variables affecting teleworkers' transport emissions. The study analyzes travel diaries from over 100,000 individuals in the English National Travel Survey (NTS) from 2002 to 2023. Our findings reveal that minimizing trip distance and reducing non-work trips, along with optimizing business travel, can lead to substantial emission reductions among teleworkers. Additionally, the decline in private car use contributes to emission reduction. Notably, the emission gap between teleworkers and non-teleworkers is larger for those living outside London.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2025 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Publisher Keywords:	Teleworking, Greenhouse gas emissions, Simulation, Global sensitivity analysis
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GE Environmental Sciences H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor H Social Sciences > HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform
Departments:	Bayes Business School Bayes Business School > Faculty of Finance
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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