Telecommuting costs and benefits

Gradually, more and more companies are waking up the benefits of allowing workers to telecommute. The required infrastructure is very much in place- without the internet working from outside a central office building would be completely impractical for the employees of most large companies, but with the arrival of cloud computing and videoconferencing it’s never been easier or more efficient.

The monetary savings are very clear. If a company doesn’t have to pay for desk space and meet all the associated costs they can remove a huge expenditure from their annual budget, and if the employee doesn’t have to commute to and from work every day they save both time and money.

Computing the environmental costs and savings associated with telecommuting is rather more difficult. The most obvious saving is in carbon. If a worker does not get in their car every day, they save fuel and pump less greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. It must be remembered that not all workers drive and many use public transport, but there is little doubt that widespread telecommuting would cut down emissions.

The costs are less obvious but they do exist. Working from home requires heating, lighting, and the expenditure of electrical energy. It’s less efficient to heat 100 single home or garden offices than it is to heat one large office, unless of course the garden buildings in question are highly efficient.

As time goes by, it’s likely that home workspaces will become more efficient and telecommuting uptake will increase further. In net terms the trends should help bring down the environmental costs of office work, but how large those gains are will depend how people choose to work outside the company HQ- in sustainable garden offices, in coffee shops, or in an un-insulated ordinary room in the house. If telecommuters give serious thought to their working space away from company HQ it will be mean even good news for the environment.

Garden offices, garden buildings

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