Want To Save The Planet? Stay Home.
Kermit the Frog need not be morose — it seems everyone wants to be green these days. Americans increasingly care about the environmental impact of their decisions, and so magazines teem with ads touting companies’ environmental cred.
Unfortunately, this strategizing has missed some low-hanging fruit. We might be using Coldwater detergent, but every morning, 76% of America’s commuters drive, alone, an average of 25 minutes to their workplaces. Many of these people then proceed to e-mail or call people in other places.
Indeed, about 40% of the U.S. workforce has jobs that, largely, do not need to be done from a central location. If the millions of Americans who never work from home, but could, stayed in their PJs, this would save a sizeable chunk of our oil imports from the Persian Gulf.
As someone who has worked from home for years (I’m writing this in my bedroom), I know that cellphones and laptops make commutes optional. Now that I have a baby, I’m an even bigger fan of this flexibility. Indeed, many companies that offer telecommuting treat it as a work-life balance perk to retain young parents.
But society as a whole benefits as much as my kid from my decision. By working primarily at home for the past five years (approximately 1,000 days), not only have I saved myself the more than 800 hours I would have spent on the road if I had an average commute, I’ve saved 1,500 gallons of gas and approximately 13 metric tons of carbon from the atmosphere.
Collectively, America’s 16 million self-employed workers (many of whom work at home like me) are making the roads that much more clear and clean for everyone else — and taking the pressure off governments to build roads or pricey transit systems. So are the 12.6 million corporate employees who, according to GreenBiz.com’s State of Green Business 2008 report, work from home at least eight hours a week.
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Photo by barunpatro.
John Peden on June 1st, 2008 3:16 am
As I understand even Best Buy are now starting to facilitate working from home. Its a great idea; as long as the work gets done, why should they care where you do it from?
Nicholas on June 2nd, 2008 5:52 pm
This also saves the company money by not having to rent the office space you’d be working in, plus the cost of heating, electricity, everyone wins…
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