There's no pleasing some people. Working from home creates too big a carbon footprint, so lets all do the commute and sit in a cubicle chained to a desk to do our bit for the environment announces new research. [Read: Stunning new research to match IPCC quality]
This just seems to fit the world view from those people that winge about everything and anything. Pathetic really. No real consideration of all the other factors that make the entire article speculative. I suspect the actual research is just as shoddy.
Did they assess car usage in getting to work, for example?
Modern office planning is actually catering for reduced head counts due to rotating staff (on road, at meetings, working at a client site and working from home) which allows canny organisations to reduce overall floorspace, share meeting rooms rather than everyone having a big office) and using less electrical resource (laptops with built in power saving modes, that are de-plugged and taken off-site with the employee. In a sense, people working from home help such organisations plan for more efficent use of office space, which in turn reduces energy consumption. And back at home, there needs to be a look at trends and family dynamics - better insulation, other family members home at the same time (meaning heaters on anyway) and reduced load on the transport system may be better than the researchers are prepared to acknowledge. OK, I haven't seen the source information, but I'll go with the theory it's all crap research that reinforces existing biases in the researchers.
Let me take you through their next report - people have carbon footprints. Doesn’t matter where they work and what they do. They are bastards. The crime is life.
Hat tip to FrogBlog (Working from home against religious precepts)
This just seems to fit the world view from those people that winge about everything and anything. Pathetic really. No real consideration of all the other factors that make the entire article speculative. I suspect the actual research is just as shoddy.
Did they assess car usage in getting to work, for example?
Modern office planning is actually catering for reduced head counts due to rotating staff (on road, at meetings, working at a client site and working from home) which allows canny organisations to reduce overall floorspace, share meeting rooms rather than everyone having a big office) and using less electrical resource (laptops with built in power saving modes, that are de-plugged and taken off-site with the employee. In a sense, people working from home help such organisations plan for more efficent use of office space, which in turn reduces energy consumption. And back at home, there needs to be a look at trends and family dynamics - better insulation, other family members home at the same time (meaning heaters on anyway) and reduced load on the transport system may be better than the researchers are prepared to acknowledge. OK, I haven't seen the source information, but I'll go with the theory it's all crap research that reinforces existing biases in the researchers.
Let me take you through their next report - people have carbon footprints. Doesn’t matter where they work and what they do. They are bastards. The crime is life.
Hat tip to FrogBlog (Working from home against religious precepts)