Effects of synchronised remote work on office energy use: A three-year field study

Remote work is increasingly recognised as an operational strategy with the potential to reduce office-level energy use. The key idea explored here is that, beyond the amount of remote work adopted, synchronising it across employees may enhance this potential. Synchronised schedules can create predictable low-occupancy days that allow non-essential services in large portions of the building to be reduced or switched off. Against this background, the study contributes field-based evidence on this organisational question under real operating conditions. The analysis is based on a three-year field study conducted in a fully electric office building in Cagliari, Italy, comparing three operational conditions: no remote work, unsynchronised remote work, and synchronised remote work on a designated day (Friday). High-resolution measurements of building electricity use, occupancy, and outdoor air temperature were analysed using multiple linear regression and climate normalisation. Results show that, in the analysed case, unsynchronised remote work was associated with a 29% reduction in normalised electricity use (95% CI: 25.3–32.6) compared with no remote work. Synchronised remote work was associated with a further reduction of 5.6% (95% CI: 0.7–12.0) relative to the unsynchronised arrangement. On the remote-work day, average savings reached 37.3% (95% CI: 24.4–49.6). Overall, the findings provide field-based evidence that, within the boundary conditions of the analysed case, synchronising remote work is associated with lower office-level electricity use and that schedule coordination can serve as an operational lever to enhance its energy-saving effectiveness.