(Credit: Pixabay)Upwork, the world’s largest work marketplace, recently released its first-ever carbon emissions report, revealing the company reached carbon neutrality for the first time in 2019. The company has also declared its commitment to remain carbon neutral going forward. In addition, Upwork announced its plans to further lower emissions in the future.
Upwork says its business model, which enables remote work, positively impacts the environment. Upwork’s own distributed approach to its workforce — including its pre-pandemic embrace of a hybrid model of employees and independent talent working from 800 cities worldwide — was an outsized contributor to its achieving carbon neutrality. For years Upwork has empowered team members to work remotely, which in 2019 reduced travel in a personal vehicle by more than one million miles. That same year, 73% of Upwork’s workforce had no commute time at all. In 2020, the company adopted a fully remote-first work model, through which working remotely will be the default for nearly every team member moving forward, avoiding future greenhouse gas emissions.
Other key factors that contributed to Upwork’s reduced carbon footprint include its participation in renewable energy programs to power specific offices, and its use of Amazon Web Services facilities instead of on-site servers, which results in operational and equipment efficiencies. Additionally, Upwork purchased high-quality renewable energy credits as well as carbon offsets from Native Energy’s UN REDD in the Yaeda Valley project, which helps prevent deforestation in Tanzania.
