Utah wants to incentivize companies to work remotely: Doing so would clean up our air, employ our rural communities, and make our state more competitive for business.

• Author: Penrod, Emma

Remote work has been on UCAIR's drawing board of potential clean air policies for some years. They just couldn't figure out how to get the state's politicians and businesses on board. "All our data before [the stay home directive] showed three major stumbling blocks. One was attitudes--executives, in particular, like to be around people," Carter says. Other concerns included a perception that productivity declines when workers work remotely and a belief that doing so would cost businesses more money by forcing them to provide laptops and other equipment for their employees.

UCAIR tried convincing local businesses that remote work was good for the environment and for the local economy, but it was a hard sell. Then came the pandemic and the stay-home orders, and something remarkable happened--global concentrations of air pollution fell by as much as 60 percent, proving the potential environmental benefits were even greater than previously imagined. "Necessity is often the mother of invention, and people went home," Carter says. As they did, local attitudes toward remote work began to rapidly shift.

In June, state legislators began working on a bill that would expand remote work opportunities for state employees in the interest of air quality. But what of private businesses? Should the state encourage, or even mandate, remote work on a broader scale?

Air quality scientists say that taking regulatory steps to preserve the improvements in Utah's air quality would pay dividends. But others, including Carter, are skeptical that Utah politics would support a mandate--and it may not even be necessary. In a recent survey, Utah business leaders expressed support for increased remote work. The "new normal" may indeed lead Utah to a low-carbon workforce, with only a few tweaks to state policy.

COMMUTING IS MORE DETRIMENTAL TO OUR AIR THAN WE THOUGHT

"Many people noted how city haze cleared, dust settled, and general air quality improved during COVID-19 lockdowns," says Zander Venter, the author of a new paper on global air pollution declines during COVID-19. The paper, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, estimated that lockdown events reduced concentrations of certain pollutants between 31-60 percent across 34 countries.

But the virus arrived late in Utah, and the governor issued his stay home directive in March and April--months where Utah typically enjoys some of its best air quality.

The timing has caused some to assert that Utah didn't experience the same...