One of the largest motoring organisations, the RAC Foundation is advising companies to allow staff to work from at home at least one day a week. It is claiming that if you work from home you can reduce energy usage up to 80%, making green house living a reality.
According to the research carried our for the RAC Foundation, two thirds of an office worker’s energy consumption is spent on transport. With each worker’s carbon footprint being between 1.5 to 4 tonnes per person, working from home makes great sense, not only for the environment, but also for the wallet and congestion on UK roads
Sheila Rainger, Deputy Director for the RAC Foundation said: “National Working from Home Day is a great opportunity for employers and their employees to try out something new. The energy and cost savings of working from home are very impressive. If everyone who were able to work from home just one day a week, we would notice a big difference on our roads and our other already overloaded infrastructure”.

The RAC Foundation fact file on office space and energy use finds that:

Office space is only used 22% of the time when a building is occupied 5 days a week between 8am and 6pm.
8% of the time is spent on holiday
30% accounts for non working days
40% goes down to non working hours
Desk utilisation audits show desks rarely occupied for more than 45% of the normal 9-5pm working day
Unless offices are optimised for flexible working, they are built to be empty for 70% of time and half empty for the remaining 30%**
Simon McBride

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