Remote and hybrid work arrangements gave New Yorkers time and motivation to join volunteer-run composting and gardening efforts at 45th St Greenspace in Sunnyside, Queens. Five years of ethnographic research at the site documented that flexible schedules and work-from-home routines enabled independent and creative workers to perform hands-on environmental labor during the workday. Volunteers—many freelance or hybrid workers in design, academia, and media—organized composting operations, plantings, public events, and infrastructure improvements. Most volunteers lived nearby and integrated the garden into daily or weekly routines. Digital platforms such as Slack, Zoom, and Signal shaped communication and coordination of grassroots environmental projects.
Remote and hybrid work arrangements enabled New Yorkers to participate in community environmental action by giving them both the time and the motivation to do so, a new study from NYU finds. Published in the Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction and presented at the 2025 Aarhus Conference on Critical Computing, the study draws on five years of ethnographic research at a volunteer-run composting and gardening site in Sunnyside, Queens.
It found that flexible schedules and work-from-home routines made it possible for independent and creative workers to engage in hands-on environmental labor during the workday. Many reported being driven not only by availability but by a desire to counter the isolation and screen fatigue associated with remote professional life. Conducted by Margaret Jack, Industry Assistant Professor in NYU Tandon's Department of Technology, Culture, and Society, the research focuses on a site known as 45th St Greenspace, established in 2020 on a formerly vacant lot.
Volunteers-many of whom were freelance or hybrid workers in fields like design, academia, or media-organized composting operations, garden plantings, public events, and infrastructure improvements. Most lived nearby and integrated the garden into their daily or weekly routines. "Working from home didn't just change where people did their jobs, it changed how they lived in their neighborhoods," said Jack. "We found that flexible schedules and a need for offline connection drew people into environmental projects, where they could turn screen time into green time."
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