How to account for a co-working desk in your carbon footprint

To account for a co-working desk in your carbon footprint, estimate your share of the building’s energy from the floor space a desk takes up and the days you use it. A typical desk takes about 12 square metres once shared areas are included. Multiply that by standard office energy benchmarks, scale it to your days a week, then apply the UK government conversion factors. One desk used three days a week works out at roughly a quarter of a tonne of CO2e a year.

That’s the short version. The longer one is reassuring: co-working is about as low-impact as a working base gets, and you can show it in a few minutes without chasing anyone for a bill.

Why is a co-working desk tricky to account for?

Because you’re paying for energy without ever seeing it. Your membership fee covers heating, lighting, Wi-Fi, coffee machines and bins, and none of it comes with a kWh figure. That leaves freelancers and small teams with a blank when a client’s supplier form asks for electricity use.

The answer isn’t to leave it out. The building is heated and lit partly for you, so a fair share of those emissions belongs in your carbon footprint. You just need a sensible way to estimate it.

How do you estimate your share of a co-working space?

This is the method the ESG Now questionnaire uses, built from published UK benchmarks:

1. Space per desk. The British Council for Offices puts average office density at about 9.6 square metres of net floor space per workstation. Gross it up by 1.25 to account for corridors, kitchens and meeting rooms, which gives about 12 square metres per desk.
2. Energy per square metre. The CIBSE TM46 benchmark for a general office is about 95 kWh of electricity and 120 kWh of heating per square metre per year.
3. Days used. Scale by the days a week you’re in, out of five. Three days is 0.6.
4. Apply the factors. Multiply the electricity kWh by the UK grid factor and the heating kWh by the gas factor.

Heating is assumed to be gas unless you know otherwise. If your space runs on heat pumps or electric heating, say so in your notes.

A worked example: one freelancer, three days a week

A freelance developer rents a hot desk three days a week. These figures use rounded 2026 UK government factors and are approximate.

• Electricity: 12 m² × 95 kWh × 0.6 = 684 kWh. At about 0.131 kg per kWh, that’s roughly 90 kg CO2e.
• Heating: 12 m² × 120 kWh × 0.6 = 864 kWh. At about 0.182 kg per kWh, that’s roughly 158 kg CO2e.
• Total for the desk: about 0.25 tCO2e a year.

Add a handful of train trips to clients and the whole business might come in at around a third of a tonne. That’s the kind of figure that reads very well on a supplier questionnaire.

A worked example: a four-person startup, five days a week

A seed-stage startup has four dedicated desks in a serviced office, used every weekday. Same approximate factors.

• Electricity: 4 × 12 m² × 95 kWh = 4,560 kWh, roughly 0.60 t.
• Heating: 4 × 12 m² × 120 kWh = 5,760 kWh, roughly 1.05 t.
• Total for the space: about 1.65 tCO2e a year, or around 0.4 tonnes per person.

Notice that heating is the bigger share in both examples. That’s typical for UK offices, and it’s why a provider that has switched to a heat pump, or buys green gas, can make a real difference to your figures.

Should you ask your provider for real figures?

It’s worth one email. Ask for:

• The building’s annual electricity and gas use in kWh
• The total floor area, or the number of desks the building holds
• What electricity tariff they’re on, and whether it’s backed by REGOs

If they come back with numbers, use them in place of the benchmarks and note that the figure came from the provider. If the electricity is on a REGO-backed renewable tariff, your market-based electricity emissions are zero, although you’d still report the location-based figure.

If they can’t help, don’t worry. The desk and days estimate is a recognised approach, and your report will label it clearly as an estimate.

What if you use a day pass or several spaces?

Plenty of freelancers don’t have a fixed desk. You might buy a ten-day pass, move between two hubs, or work from a members’ club now and then. The method still works. Count the total days you used any co-working space across the year, divide by the number of working weeks (around 46 is a sensible figure), and use that as your days per week.

For example, 70 days spread across the year works out at roughly 1.5 days a week. At one desk, that’s about 0.13 tonnes, half the three-day figure above. Keep a rough tally in your calendar as you go and next year’s figure will be easy.

Cafes and client offices don’t need counting. They’re the venue’s or the client’s emissions, not yours.

Which scope does a co-working desk fall under?

This is a genuine judgement call, and nobody will mark you down for either answer as long as you explain it.

Many small businesses report their share of heating as Scope 1 and electricity as Scope 2, because the space functions as their office. ESG Now takes this approach, so your figures line up with how an office tenant would report. Others argue that because you don’t control the building, it belongs in Scope 3 as a leased asset. Pick one, note it in your method and stick with it year to year.

What else goes in a freelancer’s footprint?

For most sole traders in co-working spaces, the full picture is short:

• Your desk share, as above.
• Business travel. Trains and flights to clients. See our guide to business travel emissions for the factors.
• Days working from home. If you split your week, the home days produce emissions too. The ESG Now footprint estimates these with the UK government homeworking factor, and our guide to working-from-home emissions shows how the calculation works.

You won’t usually have vehicles, waste contracts or water bills of your own, so there’s very little else to gather.

How long will yours take?

Pick the option that sounds most like your business. You will see a realistic time, what to have nearby and a head start on the questions.

Which sounds most like you?

Sole trader working from homeConsultants, designers, developers, coaches10 to 15 minSole trader or freelancer in a co-working spaceA desk at a WeWork, Regus or local hub10 to 15 minSmall team in a co-working or serviced officeStartups and agencies with 2 to 25 people15 to 20 minSME with its own office and no vehiclesProfessional services, tech firms, studios20 to 30 minSME with vans, cars or regular staff travelTrades, field services, consultancies on the road30 to 45 minShop, cafe, workshop or product businessRetail, hospitality, makers and manufacturers30 to 45 min

Your estimate

About 10 to 15 minutes

Around 35 short questions, most of them multiple choice

You can wrap this up over a coffee.

Your co-working space handles the heating, bins and water, so you will not need any utility bills. We estimate your share of the building from your desk and the days you use it.

Handy to have nearby

• How many days a week you use your desk
• A rough count of work trips by train or plane

Missing something? Estimates are fine, and you can come back to any answer later.

Co-working is already one of the lowest-impact ways to run a business, and your report will show it.

Start with this profile

First report free. No card needed.

How long does this take in ESG Now?

A sole trader or freelancer in a co-working space typically finishes in 10 to 15 minutes. You’ll need the number of desks or memberships, the days a week you use them, and a rough count of work trips by train or plane. No utility bills.

At the end you get a full ESG report with your carbon footprint and a private action plan. Your first report is free. Start your free report, or see how it works for sole traders and freelancers.