User:Pizzaguru16/Co-benefits of climate change mitigation

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Main Co-Benefits -

Employment and economic development:

Sustainable Housing leading to decreased energy costs and inequality. Also increased the number of homeowners (1).

The United Kingdom has explored different options with sustainable housing since the 1990s. Surveys have identified over four hundred sustainable housing developments or single houses in the UK (White, 2002), with nearly two hundred built or planned since the mid-1990s (Sustainable Homes, 2003). The goal of these sustainable homes is to reduce the carbon footprint of a large group of people. All these homes are considered low carbon housing, and to be considered as such, they must incorporate one of the following features: passive low energy design, a thermally efficient built form, and use of renewable energy technologies. Not only do these homes help the Earth through reducing carbon emission, but they are attractive and cheap homes for people to purchase. They helped many people who were struggling to find suitable living become homeowners. Eager homeowners were excited to purchase the carbon friendly homes because they saw an opportunity to not only become homeowners, but to also help the environment along the way.

Benefits of Teleworking:

One major contributor to the necessity to use various transportation methods daily is an individuals employment. Teleworking limits the amount of times that employees need to commute to work in-person and reduces the amount of transportation used everyday which, in turn, helps to lower overall emissions. It is estimated that 40 - 49 megatons of greenhouse gases could be mitigated by the year 2050 if teleworking is fully utilized by the maximum number of possible actors. Numerous co-benefits such as increased work efficiency, company savings (for example no more office space costs), and employee satisfaction stem from teleworking. This idea is held back by social and psychological fears as employees fear possible negative impacts on careers as well as increased social isolation.