Spacent team · Oct 8th 2025
CO₂-emmissions and Commute: The Untapped Sustainability Lever in Workplace Strategy
Empty square meters are expensive—and they’re not carbon-neutral. Maintaining low-utilization offices means paying for energy and services you don’t really use while locking in emissions from the built environment. With both budgets and the climate under pressure, the sensible move is to share more and waste less: design for active use, and offer professional alternatives nearer to where people live and meet clients. The reward is measurable: lower CO₂ (space + commute), lower total cost, and more predictable collaboration.
Sustainability plans often focus on energy, travel, and supply chains, and the environmental impact of your core business. Yet workplace strategy is frequently treated as a cost/HR topic—even though it directly shapes emissions. Three underused levers are:
- the environmental load of fixed space (heating, cooling, cleaning, maintenance)
- “space waste” from under-utilized offices—square meters maintained without matching use, and
- commuting long distances to offices that are in non-ideal locations or different cities or municipalities
Why this should belong in your sustainability program
- Fixed meters = persistent emissions. Idle space still consumes energy and services.
- Space waste is a climate and cost risk. Paying for unused area increases footprint without value.
- Commuting matters. Long trips to a single HQ inflate CO₂ and drain time—especially if the location is far from where people live or meet clients.
Three principles for more reasonable use of space
- Size for purpose, not the maximum
Design HQ for a typical week, not the peak. Shift from rows of assigned desks to team rooms, acoustic quality, and quiet zones. You’ll reduce space waste and invest in what actually improves work. - Activate capacity—steer demand
Include shared spaces and flex into your workplace strategy, choose 5–10 recommended hubs per city (near-home, near-office for peaks, or near-client). Show colleague presence in the booking flow, both in the HQ and in shared spaces, and make team bookings the default for collaboration. Higher utilization, less idle area. - Cut commute emissions—offer HQ alternatives
Provide professional options beyond HQ: near-home hubs, team hubs, client-adjacent locations. When part of the week happens closer to home or client sites, commute kilometers and CO₂ drop—and everyday life gets easier.
Operational playbook (easy steps for impact)
- Measure your baseline: utilization (HQ + network), weekly peaks, underutilized resources, commute distance and commute methods.
- Right-size HQ: design for typical demand; prioritize collaboration-friendly space mix, or whatever you’ve recognized as the priority need for your organisation.
- Tailor your network: set standards and publish “recommended hubs”m combined fixed and shared for more sustainable use of built environment
- Measure: review impact calculations on the real impact of your reduced commuting and reduced fixed square meters, and include them in your ESG reporting
- Review & iterate: quarterly review of utilization, space waste, commute/CO₂, cost/employee
Client Case & further reading
- Case study (EN): Commuting Impact
Bottom line
A sustainable workplace strategy accounts for both the environmental load of space and commuting. By right-sizing HQ, activating capacity through curation, and offering real alternatives to a distant HQ, organizations cut space waste, reduce commuting emissions, and make work smoother—with metrics you can track.
See your potential and calculate your potential impact → Hybrid Work Office Calculator. Contact us to get a more comprehensive analysis on commuting based on the location of your workforce.
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