Does working from home reduce CO2 emissions? An analysis of travel patterns as dictated by workplaces

•The proportion of people working from home has increased in the past 10 years.•Here SEM exploits direct and indirect effects of travel behavior on CO2 emissions.•Trade-off effects between work and non-work trips are observed for teleworkers.•Teleworkers report long commute distances and high CO2 emission levels.•Home workers have higher CO2 emission levels than those with a single workplace. This research provides new evidence about the relationship between travel behavior, workplace diversification, and environmental impact in the United Kingdom using data from the National Travel Survey for the period between 2002 and 2017. The path analysis approach based on SEM handles both direct and indirect effects and allows for a comprehensive study of travel behavior, trade-off effects, and work and non-work trips. The results suggest that workplace diversification is often reflected by longer average distances for work trips, which are often associated with more remote residential locations. Findings also show that for some categories, such as teleworkers and home-based workers, trade-off effects are observed between work and non-work trips, which increase CO2 emission levels.