Hybrid offers a cleaner, brighter future says E2E partner and IWG CEO, Mark Dixon

IWG is a partner of E2E.

We take our collective role and responsibility in tackling the climate crisis very seriously at IWG. In the last month, I am very pleased to say that we achieved carbon neutrality, meaning that we now supply all our millions of customers worldwide with carbon neutral workplaces. Still, our ultimate goal is to reach Net Zero carbon emissions by 2040 - and for much of this, we are looking to the hybrid model of working.

As recently as December, scientists were highlighting the imminent risk that, even at the current 1˚C level of global warming, at least five environmental ‘tipping points’ are likely to be passed – from the collapse of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets to a massive die-off of tropical coral reefs.

According to Johan Rockstrom, co-chair of the Earth Commission and Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, it’s likely to be far worse. “The world is heading towards 2°C to 3°C of global warming,” he says. “To maintain liveable conditions on Earth, protect people from rising extremes and enable stable society, we must do everything possible to prevent crossing tipping points. Every tenth of a degree counts.”

As world leaders grapple with the biggest issue facing the planet, there are growing indications that the fast-changing working habits of millions of people across the world mean the days could be numbered for one of the greatest drivers of global emissions: the daily commute.

Little has done more over the years to depress, stress and irritate workers than the daily commute, affecting people in otherwise fantastic careers, in exceptional cities and with great employers. It separates families, dilutes communities, contaminates the environment and wastes vast amounts of time and money.

Today, half of workers in the UK can operate remotely, while 84% of workers who worked remotely during the pandemic said they planned to continue using hybrid working. It has evolved as a space where people meet and collaborate when needed, whilst the cloud has grown as a digital office where data is saved and is accessible at any time, from anywhere. As a result, for many, the daily commute is entirely unnecessary, because the office is no longer a physical place that people have to go to every day.

While sophisticated web-based technology has been around for a few years, it has only been since the pandemic when companies have seen first-hand that not only does hybrid work, but they are able to thrive under the model. Firms are able to operate more efficiently with a more productive workforce, while employees are happier as they see hybrid working as the equivalent of a 7% to 8% pay rise.

This rapidly growing demand for hybrid working is propelling the IWG business forward as we seek to open up to 1,000 new locations over the next year. The demand to work locally is particularly strong in the suburbs, former dormitory towns, satellite villages and countryside communities that used to be denuded of their people in the working week by the irresistible draw of the big city. In parallel, many businesses are now typically opting for a fraction of their former conventional city centre space in favour of sites closer to where their employees live and actually want to be.

Just look at the sites of some of our most recent openings. In the UK we have Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire (population 8,000); Marlow, also in Buckinghamshire (14,000); and Chippenham in Wiltshire (a relatively large at 45,000).

That is not to say that businesses are abandoning city centres. Increasingly, we are helping companies shake off the expense of the long-term lease and replace it with a flexible, cost-effective agreement on a smaller space in one of our city-based centres. This, too, is a trend that is proving highly beneficial for IWG and as a result we will continue to expand across metropolitan, suburban and rural locations. Make no mistake: the office is most definitely not dead; it has just changed location.

Hybrid working also gives businesses the flexibility to scale up or down quickly without being locked into lengthy contracts. It is also ‘a no brainer’ when it comes to profit, with an independent Global Workplace Analytics survey recently showing that hybrid working can save organisations an average of more than £9,000 per employee per year.

In April, we published a landmark study in partnership with global leader in sustainable development, Arup, that set out to quantify the hybrid model’s true potential as a means of reducing work-related carbon emissions. It measured the environmental impact of hybrid working in six cities across the UK and US: London, Manchester, Glasgow, Los Angeles, New York City and Atlanta.

The project’s findings are staggering – and they hint at the immense power that’s now in our grasp to radically reduce humanity’s negative environmental impact. The headline result is that allowing people to work close to home, enabling them to split their time between home and a local workplace, has the potential to reduce a worker’s work-related carbon emissions by between 49% (in London) and 90% (in Atlanta).

Anything that’s capable of such dramatic positive change must be taken very seriously indeed.

The findings of this research are very clear. Five-day commuting to city centre offices have the largest carbon footprint. Simply spending less time in or travelling drives a drop in emissions from buildings and vehicles alike. Of course, shifting long-held patterns of behaviour takes time. In order to prompt a change in mind-set, governments and local authorities must continue to develop policies that help companies to expand hybrid working and invest in the required relevant infrastructure to support them.

We need to create integrated approaches that leverage better, more sustainable transport networks. We must have more joined-up thinking when it comes to transport planning and land usage, the development of safe cycling networks, better public transport connectivity, faster adoption of electric vehicles, the accelerated production of renewable energy, retrofits of existing premises and better energy-performance for new buildings.

It’s up to governments, businesses and public policy-setting bodies everywhere to consider the implications of these findings. That means developing policies that empower individuals and businesses to make a positive difference every day, and working together to deliver integrated strategies with hybrid working at their heart to reduce work-related carbon emissions.

The single biggest change we can all make right now is to provide people with the choice to work closer to where they need to be, and with lower impact on the environment. The results of our research with Arup show clearly that, given the right will, this is within our power – right now.

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