Working from home is the energy your staff use in their own homes on working days. It sits in Scope 3, Category 7, alongside commuting.
Decide whether to include it
It is not universally required. Some organisations include it, some exclude it and say so.
Include it if home working is a meaningful part of how your organisation operates. A workforce that is half remote has real emissions that would otherwise be invisible.
If you exclude it, record the decision and the reason. See Decide what is material and leave things out.
What it covers
The energy used because someone is working at home: heating, cooling, lighting and equipment.
Most methods calculate a figure per person per working day, which bundles these together.
Two scope decisions to make:
Equipment only, or the whole room? Counting laptop and monitor power alone is simpler and lower. Counting heating and cooling is more complete and much harder to estimate. Pick one and be consistent.
Full-time remote staff. Someone with no office to travel to has no commute but does have home energy. Include them, and record that their commuting figure is nil rather than missing.
What you need
Headcount, split by how many days a week each person works from home.
A factor per person per day.
The days come from your commuting survey. Ask for days in the office and days at home in the same question set. See Run an employee commuting survey.
People in other countries
Home energy depends on the local grid and on the local climate. Staff in another country need a factor for that country, not an Australian one.
If you have small numbers overseas, a headcount per country is enough. Do not apply an Australian factor to staff in the Philippines or the United States.
Estimating for non-responders
You will not get a survey response from everyone. Apply the average days worked from home across responders to the rest.
Record the response rate. See Estimate what you cannot measure.
Do not double count with your offices
Energy your staff use at home is not energy your office used. The two do not overlap.
What can overlap is transmission and distribution losses, which sit in Category 3 rather than here. If your Category 3 calculation already covers total purchased electricity, make sure home energy is not counted in both.
Getting it into Avarni
Upload headcount and days as activity data against a Method configured for working from home, with the right factor per country.