The role of Remote Working in smart cities: lessons learnt from COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Half of the world's population has been under lockdown to prevent the spread of COVID-19 pandemic, leading to a large shift of activities from offices to homes. Despite the inefficiencies exposed on the reliability of critical systems such as the energy system, this unprecedented situation also revealed opportunities for enhancing sustainability. This work established impact indicators that demonstrate the contribution of remote working models in tackling energy and environmental challenges for the transition of European cities to smart energy regions: at least 4,0 L of transportation fuel and 7,4 kg of carbon dioxide can be saved per hour of remote work per 100 employees for the case of Cyprus.