A four day week – the future of energy saving?

According to an article I read recently (Time Magazine, October 5 ‘Thank God it’s Thursday’ by Bryan Walsh), shifting to a four day workweek could save energy, cut traffic and make you happier.

 

A year ago the US state of Utah mandated a four day week for most state employees, closing offices on Fridays to reduce energy costs. It’s certainly an interesting way to save energy – not only in the office, but from travelling to and from the office too. Our London office is pretty green in terms of transport – with most people using public transport and those that don’t cycling or walking, but driving to central London wouldn’t be a sensible option!

 

The state of Utah found that its compressed workweek resulted in a 13% reduction in energy use and estimated that employees saved as much as $6 million in gasoline costs. Those are pretty significant savings! I’m sure this scheme would be popular here!

 

Any volunteers?

Comments

[Vivienne Kincaid]

I work for a local authority and part of my work could easily be done from home EXCEPT the IT access to the documents I need is not available to me. I can connect to my e.mail, but not documents stored on the server, via my own PC/broadband. Using my work laptop I do not have a facility to connect to the server (documents are sometimes confidential and cannot be stored on the 'C' drive), for either mail or documents, via my home broadband wireless connection. Working on dial-up the documents will not download... so into my car, 25 minutes travel, parking, work and the same process after my work has been done. I would be very happy to work four longer days, three in my office and one from home would be ideal... Referring to the comment above I work better without unecessary interruptions and distractions that are the norm when in the office.

[Stefan Drew]

I've been running a four day week in my small consultancy business for a couple of years. The weekend starts with a G&T on Thursday night.

Most of the savings are obvious but amongst the less obvious is the fact that you work smarter. My focus on the essentials has risen, gone are wasted hours doing things I enjoy but aren't really important. Prioritise your effort and you suddenly find hours of time you didn't know you had and an extra day in each weekend.

And for anyone thinking it can't be done in the present economic climate we've just had our best quarter ever!