Tinkering with Schedules: Do Shorter Workweeks Save Energy and Money?
Shortened workweeks, flextime, enforced time off; none of these are new concepts in today’s workplace. But some U.S. state governments and organizations are turning to four-day workweeks and alternative work schedules as a way to combat the recession as well as cutting down on energy consumption. They’re having varying degrees of success. U.S. technology companies are some of the earliest adapters of a flexible work schedule for their employees. Both Sun Microsystems and IBM offer their employees the ability to telecommute several days a week. A study released in 2008 by Sun indicates that employees’ daily commutes are the worst offenders when it comes to climate change, and concluded that as much of 98 percent of its employees’ work-related carbon footprints were generated before they even got to the office. Currently, more than half of Sun’s employees work from home one or two days a week, and the company was able to cut its CO2 emissions by 29,000 metric tons in 2007. It also saved
