Home > A closer look at working from home

If you saw the pictures from Greenland on the BBC 10 o'clock news last week (18th May), showing huge iceburgs detaching themselves ever more hastily from their ice fields, then like me you probably got shivers down the spine - hopefully more in empathy with the ecological potent rather than with how cold it was.

Although the jury may be out on climate change for some people, many scientists believe there is evidence to suggest the Earth's climate is changing due to the the carbon humans release into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels. This scientific opinion can be viewed at the climatic research unit website. I prefer to err on the side of caution, in which case what to do to encourage carbon reduction?

The Centre for Carbon Reduction (CRed) has a website which looks at ways in which we can reduce our personal carbon emissions. But I feel if we could cut out the car journey into work this would help to ease road congestion and lower carbon emissions, maybe even assisting the Government to meet its carbon reduction commitments under the terms of the Kyoto treaty (see the BBC news website for more information on Kyoto).

With some creative thinking on behalf of us all, what if our culture changed to accept working from home more easily? Modern information technology means many service industry jobs could be based away from an office environment - if you're sitting in front of a computer screen all day, why not do it at home. The capability must exist, if they can offshore these jobs abroad, they can certainly do it to your house.

Whats more, spending an age stuck in a traffic jam getting to and from work, which for some commuters could be 2-4 hours plus a day, is such a precious waste of your life. You could get that time back to spend on yourself or with your family. Just think, less travelling expenses and a major boost to your work/life balance.

Employers would probably gain from having happier and most likely less stressed employees, due to the improvement in their work-life balance.

Obviously this proposal may not be economically viable to companies, it would realistically take Government initiatives and incentives to make increased working from home a reality, perhaps in the form of tax breaks or subsidies. The Government has recently announced its intention to help first time buyers buy housing through a shared equity scheme, so if its intervening in the market here, why not do it also on behalf of home working/carbon reduction?

I think home-working is a win-win situation, it could provide benefits to all concerned and at the same time help the climate and environment.

 

 

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