Getty Images
READ MORE ABOUT:
If you can telecommute, should you? There are many things to consider before answering that question, but we want to give you some facts about the green side of things.
SUN Microsystems, a computer and software company known for its flexible work policies (19,000, or 56% of its employees around the world, have access to "flexible offices"), has done a study on telecommuting. What it found is very interesting from an environmental perspective. One of the main questions they asked was: "Does Open Work really save energy, or just transfer energy cost and load to employees?"
They found that:
- Employees saved more than $1,700 per year in gasoline and wear and tear on their vehicles by working at home an average of 2.5 days a week.
- Office equipment energy consumption rate at a Sun office was two times that of home office equipment energy consumption, from approximately 64 watts per hour at home to 130 watts per hour at a Sun office.
- Commuting was more than 98 percent of each employee's carbon footprint for work, compared to less than 1.7 percent of total carbon emissions to power office equipment.
- By eliminating commuting just 2.5 days per week, an employee reduces energy used for work by the equivalent of 5,400 Kilowatt hours/year.
- Working from home 2.5 days per week saved the employees in the study an average of 2.5 weeks of commute time (8 hours/day, 5 days/week).
Difficulty level: Easy to Hard
-
- {}
