Employer 2009

Let’s talk about green jobs. In fact, let’s redefine the term.  Going “green” is all about reducing emissions and energy consumption and protecting the plant. Nothing against solar panels, but if all the people in jobs the EPA says could telework actually did work from home, the environmental impact would be enormous. Add the change in commute patterns when people can flex their work hours and avoid traveling at peak hours when congestion aggravates emissions  and the impact is even greater.
 
Flexible jobs may be just about the greenest jobs around. If you just focus on teleworkers, increasing the number of fulltime teleworkers by 10% would reduce fuel consumption by 4.4 billion gallons/year. AT&T has promoted telework for many years.  Teleworkers at AT&T drove 110 million fewer miles in one year and avoided the consumption of 5 million gallons of gasoline.  Besides fuel savings on travel, when people work from home it uses less energy than commercial buildings – a difference of 3000-4400 kWh per year.
 
Telework also reduces harmful emissions. Commuters in private vehicles release 424 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere a year, 23 million tons of carbon monoxide, 1.8 million tons of volatile organic carbons and 1.5 million tons of oxides of nitrogen. At AT&T teleworkers avoided commuting 100 million miles, which reduced carbon dioxide emissions by 45,000 tons less of CO2 emissions, or 1.8 tons per teleworker. An estimated 3.5 billion square feet of saved commercial space would save 35 million metric tons of greenhouse gases. The avoidance of construction of these buildings would save another 36.4 million metric tons of greenhouse pollution.
 
You can hear more about flexible work as the ultimate ‘green job’ when Karol Rose speaks in June at the Conference Board, 2010 Corporate Citizenship and Sustainability Conference: Economic Impact on Corporate Citizenship and Sustainability Initiatives.