Air pollution assessment of telework: A design of a decision-support tool.

摘要

Telework (working partially or entirely at home instead of working at the company office) involves substituting the commute to work through the use of telecommunications and information technology. In the past few years, telework has come to the forefront of interest of policy makers, company managers, and individuals. Past surveys estimated that the number of U.S. teleworkers increased from 4 million in 1990 to 19.6 million in 2001, or 20% of the U.S. workforce. The increase reflects the implementation of telework policies in the U.S., as well as the increasing growth of telecommunications and information technology.; Telework is usually associated with competitiveness, growth, social and environmental issues. It has also been promoted as a solution to traffic congestion and air pollution problems. This thesis employs a model to assess the effect of telework on air pollution, and to enable more informed decision-making by interested individuals and organizations.; Monte-Carlo simulation is used to quantify and compare the non-telework and telework impacts of a typical employee as they relate to transportation, heating, cooling, lighting, electronic and electrical equipment use at both the company and the home office. Probabilistic, sensitivity and break-even analyses are conducted on a set of scenarios based on national surveys and empirical data. In addition, a WWW-based tool is created to facilitate the analysis of deterministic scenarios. The focus is on several greenhouse gases, criteria and hazardous air pollutants, and toxic emissions. The results are provided in grams of emissions per 7-day week.; This research finds that telework does not equally affect the emissions of different pollutants. Telework may decrease CO and NOx emissions and increase CH₄, CO₂, N₂O and SO₂ emissions under certain conditions; thus, the scope and goal of telework programs must be defined early in the implementation process. Transportation-related impacts can be reduced as a result of telework; however, home-related impacts resulting from an employee spending additional time at home could offset these reductions. Office-related impacts may not be reduced unless the office space is shared with other employees during telework days. The success of telework programs appears to depend mainly on commuting patterns, induced energy usage, and office and home space characteristics.