The Evidence Behind the Initiative

Research & Sources

Every claim in this campaign is backed by data. Explore the studies, statistics, and legal basis behind the Right to Remote Work.

Time Reclaimed

Most people in the EU still mainly work at their employer’s or their own workplace. The average one-way commute is 25 minutes. Skip that trip, and you get about 11 days of your year back — time that is not productive and not rest. Just transit.

Source: Eurostat, Main place of work and commuting time (2019 LFS)

Environmental Impact

Full-time remote workers can have a 54% lower carbon footprint from working than people who go into the office every day. In a separate study, a remote day added far less greenhouse gas at home than a commuting day added on the road. Road transport was 22.6% of EU greenhouse gas emissions in 2023.

Source: PNAS (2023); ENEA & Banca d'Italia (2026); EEA (2023)

Health & Safety: The Cost of Commuting

293 fatal commuting deaths

In Italy, commuting accidents are counted separately from accidents at the workplace. In 2025 there were 99,939 commuting accident reports and 293 deaths on the way to or from work, while deaths at the physical workplace fell. For women, commuting is a leading share of work-related fatalities. Those journeys are avoidable when the work is digitally executable.

Source: INAIL, Dati INAIL December 2025

Territorial Cohesion

Eurofound’s 2024 report, ‘Regional employment change and the geography of telework in Europe,’ finds that knowledge-intensive, teleworkable jobs remain concentrated in capital and urban regions, and that the urban–rural connectivity gap widened. Telework can uncouple work from place if public policy supports it — for example through coworking in rural and peripheral areas. That is a policy possibility the report describes, not evidence that remote work is already reducing the pull of capitals.

Source: Eurofound (2024)

Productivity

+13%

Bloom, Liang, Roberts & Ying (2015, Quarterly Journal of Economics) ran a randomised experiment at Ctrip, a Chinese travel agency. Call-centre employees working from home saw a 13% performance increase: 9% from more minutes per shift (fewer breaks and sick days) and 4% from more calls per minute in a quieter environment.

Source: Bloom, Liang, Roberts & Ying (2015), QJE

Equal Dignity & the "Face-Time Bias"

Elsbach, Cable & Sherman (2010, Human Relations) documented that managers spontaneously rate employees who are simply seen in the office as more dependable or committed, regardless of what they are observed doing. Campaign reading: this face-time bias can disproportionately penalise remote and flexible workers, including caregivers and people with disabilities.

Source: Elsbach, Cable & Sherman (2010), Human Relations 63(6)

Legal & Political Basis

This initiative's demand rests on established EU competences and precedent:

•Articles 151 and 153 TFEU — working conditions, social exclusion, health and safety at work, and equality between men and women in the labour market. The Work-Life Balance Directive (2019/1158) was adopted on Article 153(2)(b) in conjunction with Article 153(1)(i).
•Articles 191 and 192 TFEU — environmental policy. Shared competence includes the environment under Article 4(2)(e) TFEU.
•Article 4(2)(c) TFEU — economic, social and territorial cohesion. Article 4(2)(k) TFEU — common safety concerns in public health matters, for the aspects defined in the Treaty.
•The transnational, digital nature of remote work justifies regulation at the supranational (EU) level, consistent with practices already emerging across the wider Western world.

Source: TFEU Art. 151; TFEU Art. 153; TFEU Art. 191; TFEU Art. 192; TFEU Art. 4; Directive (EU) 2019/1158