Everyone pretty much agrees that effective remote work needs a dedicated setup. Which means having an extra room. That means remote work is going to increase real estate footprint. The carbon savings on commute will instead be used up for propping up suburban lifestyle.
If one is living in a dense city and going to use wework instead, then we still need wework office buildings and commute will still be involved. So I don't see real carbon savings with a switch to remote.
I have 900 sq ft apartment, when I switched to wfh I went to Ikea, put two desks in my one bedroom one for my partner one for, and it's doubled as our office for years now.
Yes you need a dedicated space but do you know what spaces typically have lots of extra room and involve activities that basically never overlap with work -- your bedroom. And this is with the fact that I work on call and get called into work during weird hours, I sit at my kitchen island with headphones.
Who is everyone and what does dedicated setup mean when they say it? You say it has to be an entire room but for me and most folks I work with outside of management that's a desk somewhere in their house like their room, family room or living room.
> what does dedicated setup mean when they say it?
the one where you are not distracted by other family members, like working from your kitchen or living room. That is simply unworkable for a WFH situation.
I assume you mean young children since older children and adults would respect your boundaries. If you do mean older children and other adults and they're not behaving ridiculously perhaps there's another issue at play impacting your ability to focus. I won't speculate but I had that problem a long time ago and exploring it changed my life for the better.
If one is living in a dense city and going to use wework instead, then we still need wework office buildings and commute will still be involved. So I don't see real carbon savings with a switch to remote.