Quantitative holistic assessment of environmental impacts of teleworking

在加拿大，住宅和商业建筑以及个人交通工具约占能源消耗和温室气体(GHG)排放量的40%。远程工作、远程办公和其他替代办公室工作安排被吹捧为具有巨大的潜力，可以减少个人交通和办公建筑的能源消耗和空间。然而，目前尚不清楚这如何影响广泛的社会能源使用和温室气体排放，特别是在考虑到住宅和商业建筑以及客运的加拿大背景下。*申请者研究计划的长期目标是开发技术、设计流程和运营战略，以产生具有积极环境、经济和社会影响的高性能(舒适、可用、低能耗、有弹性)建筑。短期目标(目前的提议)是制定和应用科学方法(建模和模拟以及实地研究)，以量化替代办公室工作战略对能源使用和温室气体排放的影响。空间范围将侧重于写字楼和住宅楼，但也将考虑客运以及信息和通信技术(ICT)。*这项拟议的研究涉及一项为期一年的大型综合混合方法实地研究，对象包括100名上班族，其中一半经常远程工作，另一半以传统方式工作(通勤到家外的办公室)。目标是：1)发展关于工作安排的能源和温室气体排放影响的具体新知识；2)确定在元模型中应在多大程度上考虑各种活动和采购决定(下一步)。*应开发和应用考虑上述四个领域的综合元模型。该模型旨在量化个人以及跨越人群的更大趋势的边际影响。这项研究的主要数据来源是：1)住宅和商业建筑模型，实施了详细的居住者模型；2)公开的数据库(如人口普查)。*上述研究将由申请人领导，由9名高素质人员执行，包括3名博士、4名硕士和2名本科生。学员将在勘测和现场测量方法、详细的建筑模型以及能源、热传递、建筑控制等方面的基础知识方面获得丰富的经验，所有这些都是行业和政府高度重视的。*这一结果将有可能极大地影响公司和政府的政策，因为加拿大估计有1000万工人可以远程办公。预计这项研究将表明，替代办公室工作安排对环境的影响不应仅限于建筑物一级，雇主可能有可能对远远超出办公大楼本身边界的环境影响产生重大影响。

In Canada, residential and commercial buildings and personal transportation are responsible for approximately 40% of energy use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Teleworking, telecommuting, and other alternative office working arrangements have been touted as having great potential to reduce personal transportation and office building energy use and space. However, it remains unclear how this impacts widespread societal energy use and GHG emissions particularly in the Canadian context considering residential and commercial buildings and passenger transportation. ***The long-term objective of the applicants' research program is to develop technologies, design processes, and operating strategies to yield high-performance (comfortable, usable, low-energy, resilient) buildings that have positive environmental, economic, and social impacts. The short-term objective (the current proposal) is to develop and apply scientific methods (modelling and simulation and field studies) to quantify the impact of alternative office working strategies on energy use and GHG emissions. The spatial scope will focus on office and residential buildings, but also consider passenger transportation and information and communication technologies (ICT). ***The proposed research involves a year-long large comprehensive mixed-methods field study of 100 office workers half who regularly telework and half who work in a conventional sense (commuting to an office outside of their home). The objectives are to: 1) develop concrete new knowledge on the energy and GHG emission impacts of working arrangements and 2) determine the extent to which various activities and purchasing decisions should be considered in a meta-model (the next step).***A comprehensive meta-model that considers the above four domains shall be developed and applied. The model aims at quantifying the marginal impact of individuals as well as larger trends spanning populations. The main data sources for this research are: 1) residential and commercial building models with detailed occupant models implemented and 2) publicly available databases (e.g., the Census).***The above research will be led by the applicant and executed by nine highly qualified personnel, including three PhD, four master's, and two undergraduate students. Trainees will gain significant experience with survey and field measurement methods, detailed building model, and fundamentals in energy, heat transfer, building controls, etc. all of which are highly sought after by industry and government. ***The results will have the potential to greatly impact corporate and government policy for the estimated 10-million workers in Canada who could telecommute. The research is expected to show that environmental impacts of alternative office working arrangements should not be limited to the building level and that employers may have the potential to significantly impact environmental impact well beyond the boundaries of the office building itself.