You may experience bad about the Clarence Shepard Day Jr. when you never leave the sofa , but there is an upside to work remotely , watching Netflix , range food andconsumer goodsonline , and lying around your house scrolling through Facebook . A new survey in the journalJoule , spot byFast Company , find that as technology permit people to spend more time at home , it ’s reducing American energy usage .
investigator from the University of Texas at Austin examined datum from the Bureau of Labor Statistics ' annualAmerican Time Use Survey , find that between 2003 and 2012 , people expend more time at home and less clip traveling to and from storage and workplace . accord to this data , Americans in 2012 spent a sum of 7.8 more days at home than in 2003 and 1.2 fewer days traveling . That means they were n’t getting in their railroad car and burn up fossil fuels to drive around town . And , if fewer people are working in office overall , presumptively those buildings ask less vitality to work ( for lesson , they do n’t need as much power for lights or air conditioning ) . In total , the research worker estimate that Americans used 1.8 percent less energy as a nation because of this menage - bound change in lifestyle .
Considering that these metrics are from 2012 , it ’s likely that people are spend even less clock time locomote outside their home these day . U.S. governmentdatashow that e - Department of Commerce has been a steady grow portion of total retail sales for a tenner .
There ’s reasonableness to resist becoming a total troglodyte , though — and it ’s not just the demand for Vitamin ergocalciferol or exercise . There are scene of stay on habitation that are n’t quite so carbon - friendly — ones that are n’t fully addressed in this study . You may be staying off the road , but the motortruck delivering your grocery and goods are n’t , and they require fossil fuel . Cities are currentlyoverwhelmedwith delivery trucks ferry software program from Amazon , Peapod , Postmates , and all the other online services that multitude can now use as their go - to shopping name and address . The massive upsurge in people getting groceries , office supplies , home commodity , article of clothing , and just about anything else extradite to their homes has led to an increase in freight dealings , because motortruck still have to be deployed to get those packages to front doors . ( At least untildrone deliverytakes off . )
continue at home and watching a motion-picture show on Netflix alternatively of expire out to the film save vim , but have your toilet theme sent to your house still requires some gas . clock time will tell whether shipping servicing dropping off purchases , versus the great unwashed get going out shopping , significantly reduces carbon usage . One study found that effect depend on whether the shopper lives in a suburban or urban surround , among other issue [ PDF ] . So delight your Netflix dark , but do n’t get too self-satisfied about your Amazon purchases just yet .
[ h / tFast Company ]
