Recently, a client posed an intriguing question: "How can we accurately measure our sustainability impact when we operate from a co-working space, when electricity, air-conditioning, and other utilities are shared with all the other tenants?"
The continued popularity of co-working spaces and remote work models presents a unique challenge for businesses striving to accurately assess and manage their environmental footprint, as traditional methods of measuring energy consumption and emissions do not directly apply to these shared and distributed work environments.
After careful research, Cheeri has found two practical solutions to address this challenge.
Key Considerations:
- Shared Resources: The primary obstacle is the shared nature of utilities within a co-working space. This makes it difficult to directly attribute specific energy consumption to your company.
- Data Availability: Obtaining accurate and granular data from the co-working space operator can be challenging.
Proposed Solutions:
1. Industry Averages (Recommended)
This approach leverages readily available data to provide a reasonable estimate:
- Scope 1 & 2 (Direct & Indirect Emissions):
- Utilize official energy consumption benchmarks for office buildings in your region. For example, according to EMSD Energy Consumption Indicators and Benchmarks Sep 2024, the energy consumption of Grade A office building in Hong Kong is 398 MJ/m² per year. To calculate energy consumption of your organization, determine the ratio of your employees to the total average number of occupants on your floor (e.g. 3 employees out of 30 total average number of occupants), then multiply by floor area and 398 MJ/m² to arrive at approximate energy consumption per year.
- Scope 3 (Indirect Emissions):
- Determine types of transportations your employees use and their distance from work, multiplied by the average number of times they go to the office per month or year.
2. Co-working Space Data (Less Feasible)
This approach aims for greater accuracy but requires more data:
- Scope 1 (share of air conditioning, refrigerators):
- Ask your co-working space the airconditioning refrigeration type and monthly usage. Then, calculate carbon emission of air-conditioning multiplied by the ratio of your employees to the total average number of occupants on your floor.
- Scope 2 (share of electricity, gas):
- Ask your co-working space monthly usage of electricity and/or gas. Then, calculate approximate carbon emission of utilities multiplied by the ratio of your employees to the total average number of occupants on your floor.
- Scope 3:
- Determine types of transportations your employees use and their distance from work, multiplied by the average number of times you go to the office per month.
Recommendation:
We recommend Proposal 1 due to its feasibility. Obtaining detailed energy consumption data from the co-working space operator can be time-consuming and may involve significant data requests.
If your organization does not want to use internal resources to report GHG Scope 1 & Scope 2 emissions, consider using a service such as Cheeri to automate this process.
AI-supported Cheeri makes it really easy to set standardized metrics, collect data and create impact / sustainability report. Schedule a demo to get started!
