I really hope so. Now, many companies are forced to do remote work and my hope is that they see that it can work more or less (they might have to figure things out and experiment for a while until they get to full productivity again).

If everyone who can (most office jobs), works from home, it could a huge impact on the environment. All that wasted commute to and from work would be gone. Trains and streets wouldn’t overflow like they do now during rush hours. Also, people might move away from these horrible cities … no, wait, they should stay there so I have more space here in my village

Depends on few things …

1. The first one is definitely time. If virus would survive summer and would continue to infect in next months too then we may be in remote heaven. Just people would be used for it and after half a year of working like that working onsite may generate more and more costs.

2. Countries and their laws … After longer time company owners may look at security differently, but if there would be still something which compensates costs of offices then many companies potentially could turn back …

3. How much people would panic. Surprisingly panic may finally give something positive.

4. There could be also something that would force people to work remotely. Just look how some type of businesses (not single companies, but most/all of specific type) have problems. Imagine extra taxes on tickets for public transport or something like that. When prices increases it may be less worth (in at least short time) to work onsite. People therefore may force work in such way or leave company.

5. Due to a huge changes in world there could be a chain reaction which may force people to work remotely in “this or other way”.

6. Travel restrictions may cause less normal people to travel. It could completely change touristic business and increase therefore costs of travel especially between continents. Maybe USA would finally wake up and stop with all of that “fake remote” (like remote, but only in x city/country/timezone) offers.

7. Change in development environments … Not only gaming may much more focus on online play, but overall IT-related work. Maybe even we would have more native apps. New environments for working with fully distributed teams may change business.

and many more …

I’ve seen no small amount of companies clearly assert that they will be back to on-site work after the lockdown is over so I have my doubts.

However, I am pretty sure that remote in general will become more prevalent which is a huge win – including for the planet.

Hopefully the pressures on the business will finally make them see through the very shallow “he is in the office, I can look at his screen, therefore he is working” dogma – which almost never works anyway.