It has been over two years since COVID-19 first forced a massive shift to remote work. Since then, most companies have adapted to conduct business efficiently using more technology. For most workplaces, returning to pre-pandemic levels of in-person work is unlikely. How do we ensure that this permanent increase in remote work ends up reducing carbon emissions, as opposed to increasing them?

     At first blush, remote work appears to be a boon for the environment. Fewer employees making the commute to the office reduces carbon emissions. For example, India’s second largest IT service provider, Infosys, reduced its carbon emissions by 46% in the year following the start of the pandemic. This number sounds good but is misleading.
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     It turns out that having your employees work from home doesn’t necessarily reduce their total carbon emissions. Although they’re no longer commuting, they’re now using more lights, computers, internet, heat and air conditioning in their own homes. They are also purchasing lunch food and office supplies, both of which have supply chains and associated emissions. Additionally, if your employees followed global trends, many moved during the pandemic from
cities to suburbs, where houses are bigger, public transportation is scarcer and driving is more commonplace. If their home offices are less energy efficient and if their purchasing decisions are less environmentally sustainable than yours as an employer, your team members could be spewing more carbon into the atmosphere as remote workers than as office workers. Despite its elimination of the commute and office use, remote work does not necessarily reduce carbon emissions.       

Fortunately, your company can ensure that the modern remote-work era is climate friendly by:

1. Promoting clean and efficient home energy. Many companies have switched to purchasing renewable electricity for their operations. It’s time to consider doing the same for employee electricity use outside the office. Consider incentivizing or funding employee upgrades to clean power sources. Similarly, consider paying for employee home energy efficiency improvements.

2. Cutting down on business travel. Air travel is a bigger source of emissions than offices. Consider cutting back on nonessential business travel. Have employees to ask themselves “can this meeting or event be successful online?” before booking a ticket.

3. Encouraging public transportation. Consider company policies that reward or reimburse employees for use of public transit for work-related travel.

4. Measuring total impact. Calculate your company’s total emissions – including from commuting and use of home as office – to ensure you’re minimizing your company’s overall carbon footprint. This Watershed calculator can help.
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     In summary, if your company has many remote or hybrid workers, it’s time to include the carbon impact of employees working at home in your overall climate policies, measurement and goals.

Given Colorado laws, the US Supreme Court’s recent decision to overturn Roe v. Wade has little impact on state residents’ immediate access to legal abortions. It does, however, have an impact on Colorado employers. In today’s world, companies need to manage their relationship to this, and all, political developments involving societal issues. Employees and customers increasingly expect your corporate social responsibility (CSR) to address societal issues they consider important. As shown in a prior post, ignoring this expectation is costly and increasingly infeasible as CSR drives business performance and financial results.

The bottom line is that businesses need to consider their response to the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade ruling. To help your company craft its response, following are the principal ways major brands have responded:

• Making public statements. Some major brands have issued statements decrying the ruling. For example, Lyft said the ruling will “hurt millions of women” and Buzzfeed that it’s “regressive and horrific.” Although a public statement in support of the Court’s decision is also a CSR response, it does not appear that any major brand has done this.
  
• Joining a collective position. Over 350 companies make up Don’t Ban Equality, a coalition of businesses that signed a letter opposing restrictions on abortion access. Signatories include Burton Snowboards, Eileen Fisher, Etsy, Levi Strauss, Nordstrom and Yelp.
• Addressing the healthcare implications. Since American companies operate in an employer-sponsored healthcare system, eliminating the option to get an abortion is an HR issue. Not surprisingly, dozens of companies, including Citi, Google, Grubhub, Nike and Patagonia, have updated their employee health benefits to safeguard access to safe and legal abortions. In fact, this is the most common company response to the high Court’s ruling. Company policy updates consist largely of reimbursement for travel and medical expenses for employees seeking abortions. While your Colorado employees might not personally need this benefit, research suggests that their company loyalty and intention to will falter if your company doesn’t offer it to any out-of-state employees who might need it.
• Leveraging the company’s business to promote change. Some companies are conducting business in a way that furthers an abortion-related cause, most commonly the on the pro-choice side. Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch, for example, implied that the company’s content creation would be used as a tool to restore reproductive rights and Google announced that it will protect the privacy of women seeking abortions by deleting location data when people visit abortion clinics.
• Supporting employee and customer activism. Some brands have instituted policies to encourage employee protests and other activism. Live Nation and Patagonia, for example, will post bail for employees arrested for peacefully demonstrating against the Court ruling. Lyft, on the other hand, will provide legal support for drivers choosing to drive passengers to abortion appointments despite the risk of a law suit. OkCupid sent an in-app notification to every US user in a state likely to ban abortion encouraging them to call their elected officials and demand that they protect women’s right to choose.
• Supporting nonprofits. Companies that donate to pro-choice organizations include Freshly, Levi’s and Lululemon. Because the number of women seeking abortions in Colorado is expected to skyrocket as out-of-state women who have lost this right flock here, giving pro-choice organizations cash, in-kind donation and volunteer time might be especially impactful here. Of course, a company’s CSR might also involve donating to pro-life nonprofits, but no major brand appears to have done this in response to the high Court’s ruling (although many brands have donated to political candidates with pro-life stands over the last few years).
• Doing nothing. Inaction is an option that some brands, including Marriott, PepsiCo and Walmart, have opted for (at least for now). But it’s not risk free. Whether or not your company chooses to discuss the ruling, odds are its break rooms, slack channels and online meetings are buzzing with discussion. If your employees hold views similar to those of Americans overall, the majority of them disapprove of the ruling. This means that your workforce is experiencing anger, fear, sadness and other negative emotions. The same can be said of customers, some of which have called for boycotts of companies that are staying mum. Disregarding how important this issue is to key stakeholders will undermine your relationship with them. In other words, for most companies not taking any action will be interpreted as a taking a position. Neutrality is not an option.

CSR involves managing positions on key societal issues, including those that are politicized. These include diversity equity and inclusion, climate change and now abortion. Long gone are the days when companies could be good corporate citizens by only supporting uncontroversial causes far from the political fray. Today, it’s impossible to conduct CSR without making political statements. The only question is how effectively companies manage their CSR and, thus, successfully navigate through the highly politicized civil society they operate in.

​For assistance in designing and executing your CSR strategy, contact us.