Assessing How the Use of Teleworking Impacts GHG Emissions: A Study Case

ITU-T Study Group 5 has recently approved Recommendation L.1480 “Enabling the Net Zero transition: Assessing how the use of information and communication technology solutions impact greenhouse gas emissions of other sectors” [1]. In parallel to the standardization process, a complete study case has been led within Orange to apply this ITU methodology to the use of teleworking in Orange Atalante premises in Rennes. This arti-cle illustrates the principles of Recommendation L.1480 through this example. More particularly, first-order effects induced within the digital sector by the implementation of teleworking are described. Then second-order effects, induced in complementary sectors including notably transport and buildings are depicted. As recommended by the standard, higher-order effects are also rigorously assessed. This assessment highlights that the quantified benefit of teleworking initiation on greenhouse gas emissions reduction in this specific context is about two times smaller, due to the evaluation of higher-order effects, than the main reduction effect (reduced commuting), and about three times smaller for the measured teleworking acceleration case. This needs to be confirmed by reusing the same methodology in different contexts.