Work From Home on Earth Day 2009

U.S. employees with telework-compatible jobs can help save the planet from being polluted by 1.5 billion pounds of greenhouse gases, if they decide to work at home on Earth Day, April 22. This will be equivalent to taking 127,000 cars off the road for a year.

 

These calculations have been made by Kate Lister and Tom Harnish, the creaters of the Telework Savings Calculator. The duo also authored the recently released book, Undress For Success—The Naked Truth About Making Money at Home.

 

Research indicates that even though over 50 million Americans hold jobs that are telework-compatible, less than six million consider home their regular workplace. According to the authors, the greenhouse gas savings would total 84 million metric tons annually, if people exercise the option of working from home just half of the time.

 

Lister and Harnish used the latest U.S. Census American Community Survey figures, and data from dozens of authoritative studies, to develop the Telework Savings Calculator.

 

Available free for public, corporate and government use, the offering can quantify what every city, county, region, Congressional District, and State in the nation could save through telecommuting / work-from-home initiatives.

 

A customized option of the Telework Savings Calculator also enables users to change more than a dozen variables to model their own company or community savings potential.

 

Lister and Harnish note that if more people begin to work from home, there will be fewer cars on the road and it will cut U.S. Gulf Oil imports by 57 percent. Telework-compatible jobs can also increase U.S. company profits by over $550 billion a year thanks to lower real estate, and electricity consumption. A work-from-home option also decreases absenteeism and increases employee productivity.

 

The authors also suggest that this option would enable individuals to save between $2,500 to $11,000 a year. In addition, it will provide them with a total of 2.5 workweeks of free time a year, spent earlier on commuting.