Are the Top Green Companies Flexible?

This month, a list of Top Green Companies was compiled by Newsweek, Trucost, and Sustainalytics, who teamed up to find out which American companies are friendliest to the environment.  But are they green enough to cut down on environmental pollution by offering employees the option to telecommute?

Let’s start with the environmental facts. According to data provided by Telework Research Network:

-    45 percent of the U.S. workforce holds a job that is suitable for part-time or full-time telecommuting.

-    If those with compatible jobs worked at home 2.4 days a week, the reduction in greenhouse gases would be the equivalent of taking the entire New York workforce off the roads.

The top 10 companies that made the “green” list include IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Sprint Nextel, Baxter, Dell, Johnson & Johnson, Accenture, Office Depot, CA Technologies (News - Alert) and Nvidia.

When compared to data released by FlexJobs, the industries in which those companies operate have the most open positions for flexibility including the top 5 career fields, according to the Flexible Job Index (FJI) released October 6:

1.       Medical & Health
2.       Education
3.       Sales
4.       Computer & IT
5.       Administrative

But are these “Top Green Companies” offering telecommuting? The answer is a resounding yes… for some. IBM (News - Alert) offers a variety of flexible positions, according to the FlexJobs job board, including current open positions such as Systems Agenda Consultant, SAP (News - Alert) Talent Management Consultant and Business Resilience Strategy Consultant. In addition, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Johnson and Johnson, Accunture all have open positions currently on FlexJobs.

Baxter, Sprint/Nextel, CA Technologies don’t have any open telecommuting positions currently, but have had telecommuting postings in the past, while Office Depot and Nvidia have both offered positions for part-time work.

Such telecommuting employment opportunities are critical to the environment. Cisco (News - Alert) (not on the Top Green Companies list) has reported that by offering telecommuting, they have saved 47,320 metric tons of greenhouse gases from being released and saved $10.3 million in fuel costs each year and Sun Microsystems (News - Alert) (also not on the list) reported that its 24,000 U.S. employees participating in the Open Work Program avoided producing 32,000 metric tons of CO2 last year by driving less often to and from work. With such impressive competition, it’s good to know Newsweek’s Top 10 selection of green companies walk the walk when it comes to offering flexible positions

Passionate about flexible work, Chelsea P. Gladden is the Marketing & PR Director for FlexJobs, the leading site for part-time, telecommuting and other flexible positions. With an extensive background writing for the web, Chelsea is also a mother of 5 (yes, 5) and can regularly be found with a mocha in hand at the beach with her husband and kids.