Quaderni IRCrES 14 cap.7
Chapter 7
Environmental implications of agile working: an assessment of commuting emissions
Greta Falavigna*, Francesca Silvia Rota**, Lisa Sella*, Giampaolo Vitali*
*CNR-IRCrES, National Research Council of Italy – Research Institute on Sustainable Economic Growth, via Real Collegio 30, 10024 Moncalieri (TO) – Italy
** Department of Economics and Statistics “Cognetti De Martiis” – University of Turin and CNR-IRCrES
corresponding author: giampaolo.vitali@ircres.cnr.it
Abstract
Agile working is an organizational innovation that has a significant impact on the business, on the society, and on the environment, too. The latter is the focus of our work, which aims to identify the effects of smart working on CO2 emissions generated by less commuting.
Our study refers to a survey conducted on 2,921 workers at CNR during the pandemic.
According to Istat census, the majority of the Italian workers travels prevalently by car, and our survey confirms it for the R&D worker sample, too. Usually, our sample produces 10,200 kg of CO2 per each working day made by travelling by car (8,000 kg) and by public transports (2,200 kg). Because of the high CO2 impact of the commuting, we estimated an emissions’ saving of 5,000 kg CO2 thanks to the introduction of agile working during the pandemic. The legacy of the pandemic experience is a change in the habits of commuting, partly shifting towards clean transports (additional saving of 89 kg per day).
The results of the paper should be taken into consideration by policy makers as the energy policy and the environmental policy in Italy have to be implemented by different programmes, even supporting new habits for consumers, producers, and workers.
Keywords: environmental sustainability, commuting emissions.
ISBN (online): 978-88-98193-26-4
ISBN (print): 978-88-98193-27-1
How to cite this chapter
Falavigna, G., Rota, F.S., Sella, L., & Vitali, G. (2022). Environmental implications of agile working: an assessment of commuting emissions. In Reale, E. (ed). Agile working in Public Research Organizations during the COVID-19 pandemic. Organizational factors and individual attitudes in knowledge production (pp. 101-115). Quaderni IRCrES 14. Moncalieri, TO: CNR-IRCrES. http://dx.doi.org/10.23760/2499-6661.2022.14