Not so fast. Many of our products are perfect for a home office (wouldn’t you just love to sink your pajama-clad tush into this lushness?).
That said, you gotta love this great overview of the joys, wherewithals with a roundup of why working from home makes more and more sense.
Their number one reason: “it’s better for the atmosphere.”
Despite slow growth in jobs and travel, traffic congestion continues to worsen, researchers say, costing Americans $63.1 billion a year. The 2005 Urban Mobility Report measures traffic congestion trends from 1982 to 2003, reflecting the most recent data available. If today’s higher fuel prices are factored in, the cost jumps another $1.7 billion. It's even worse than that because the UMS report doesn't seem to count the many health costs associated with stress, air pollution, etc.
The Treehugger.com overview cites this nifty finding from Sun Microsystems, via Planet Green.com :
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
The study showed how good telecommuting was for the environment, but didn’t delve into productivity of the at-home workers. Did they work more? Harder? Smarter? Don’t know.
Still, how cool would it be to call the Big Guy and say “Boss, I’m feeling green this morning and so I’m working at home.
How well would that go over, we wonder....
And, lastly, we leave you with this: a little ditty about dirty diesel engines becoming clean , sung by no other than Garrison Keiller, a man who’s voice can make even the worst poem sound weighty and important. There’s a video, too (we especially love the bunnies in their noise ear muffs). Watch and listen. Then just try – try – not to sing along.
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