Can Telecommuting Help Save The Planet?
May 25, 2007 | by Christopher Nickson
Telecommuting could help fight climate change, according to a new report.
It’s something that might bring joy to many who fight their way to work every day. According to a new report, telecommuting – working from home via your computer – can be a factor in helping to combat climate change.
The report was sponsored by BT Conferencing and Danish company Giritech, and backed by the Trades Union Council, the Confederation of British Industry, as well as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth. It concluded, perhaps unsurprisingly, that working from home could significantly reduce road traffic. But it also pointed out that for real green advantages to accrue, we’ll have to change the way we use technology.
In fact, according to the report, some 80% of the savings made on the energy of journeys will be obliterated by increased use of heating and lighting at home. But among workers there’s a real desire to work from home wherever possible. According to David Banister, an Oxford professor and one of the report’s authors,
“There is a massive appetite for home and remote working: 65% of people asked said that they would work from home if they could.”
However, more powerful new home computers use more energy, and with routers and servers on 24/7, telecommuting has its own green issues to address if it’s going to make a real contribution to the bigger ecological picture. Additionally, some labor activists are worried that telecommuting could also lead to more outsourcing in cheaper economies, taking downsizing to a new level.
So telecommuting, which is already a growing trend, could have very positive benefits for global warming, the report concludes, but only if it’s carried out “in a planned and managed way.”
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Sushant Madhab on May 29th, 2007 at 12:38 AM:
Dear Christopher,
You wrote, "So telecommuting, which is already a growing trend, could have very positive benefits for global warming, the report concludes, but only if it's carried out ''in a planned and managed way''."
I totally agree with your views here. Telecommuting will help us to build a secure future for our children, by delaying the Global Warming/Climate change of our mother earth. BUT, as rightly said, it needs to be done in a planned, structured and organized manner.
IMHO, there is no time for thinking/processing anymore; we just have to start the doing as we lost our valuable time before.
The use of people along with technology in the right blend would be the key here. We can even refer to something more similar to an eWorking Facility, which would be able to structure and organize our knowledge.
Rgds,
Sushant Madhab
www.QXSystems.com