But isn’t it so that those same people have the same cables, coffee makers, TVs, stereos etc. anyway because they’ll buy them for their free time? So basically at least I don’t see any of that increasing if people would work from home. We’d just get rid of some extra coffee makers, TVs etc.

Correct me if I’m wrong but this is how my math says it goes :)

What comes to hybrid cars, I agree with you totally. Another point there is that the old cars will have to be disposed – so making a sudden switch to hybrid cars is not that nice. However, if you are already concidering a new car, then getting a hybrid car would be a better choice. All the pollution involved in creating a new car would happen anyway…

you have one hundred people all working from home, linked by millions of miles of cabling (manufactured and torn from mother earth), each of them with their own coffee maker (100 of them), TV on (50), listening to the stereo (50), lights on in their rooms (100), and heating the house (100).

OR 100 people in one office, sharing everything. Is working from home really beneficial???

as for the environmentally (hybrid) cars, where do the batteries come from, what do THEY pollute during manufacturing, where do they go when they are dead…

I should get my bike repaired so I could start using it again too… :)

But when you combine your points with the case about helping to save the nature at the same time I think it should make a pretty powerful package of evidence to make companies consider whether they really need their offices or not…

I’m actually already in the middle of writing a new post about this very same topic but from the viewpoint you brought up in your comment. It’ll be out on Monday. :)

Also, just to be a bit picky, I don’t think people are always DOING work at the office either. It’s just so much easier to pretend to be working when you’re staying at the office compared to when you work from home. So maybe if we would all be working from outside the office we would finally start evaluating people’s work by the results and not the time spent in doing it.

So perhaps instead of focussing on CO2, perhaps look at the potential benefits from the company’s perspective. Here area few thoughts:
* Increased productivity – not being bothered constantly by workmates means that I can focus on my work more.
* Increased time to work – the time I’d usually spend commuting would be spent doing work and the usual “have coffee, eat something, read news” time would be taken out of my own time before I “get to work” rather than out of work hours.
* Reduction of costs to the business – working from home means that I pay the bill for utilities, not my employer.
* Increased happiness in employees = even higher productivity – workers will generally be a lot happier working from home as they don’t have to face the rat race or deal with the office idiot. People who are happier work harder and better (that’s a no brainer). They’re also a bit more loyal to a company when they are in these working conditions.
* Flexible hours – having flexible hours means that the worker can take a 2 hour chunk off in the middle of the day to do something, and then make up the time when they get home. They’re at work after all, so they can do it when they want. This also means that those people who aren’t “morning people” can actually get up a bit later and work during their more productive hours.

I’m sure there are stacks more, but until employers see these kind of benefits for themselves, and have a successful trial run with a couple of reliable employees we’ll all be riding the trains/planes/cars to work for a fair while longer.

David: Good point. I think what you’re saying might actually be one of the biggest fears people have regarding working from home. It works both ways: the employer is afraid that if he lets his people work from outside the office, they won’t do a thing. And at the same time the employee is afraid that if she’s not seen at the office enough, she’s thought to not be doing any productive work and forgotten (and then her work can be moved to somewhere else: it could be India, or it could be a new hire who actually works at the office).

I think there are two things that we need to keep in mind here: first of all, you should make yourself so valuable to your employer that he wants to keep you for who you are and not just your skill set and your education. I think if your employer values you enough, in the end he wants to keep you no matter how expensive you are. The other thing is that of course even if you’re working from home you need to provide value to the company by doing your work well (maybe even better than you did when you stayed at the office) and keep in touch with your boss, by e-mail, phone calls and so on.

And still one thing, actually it’s the thing that Jignesh is also talking about. I’d like to see companies go 100% virtual so that all of their employees would be working from outside the office – so that the company wouldn’t have an office at all. This way of course the company could hire people from all over the world, but as everyone would be working from home (or some other nice place they enjoy) there wouldn’t be need to show up at the office to make sure your boss notices you.

Some of this might be a bit idealistic, but same as Jignesh, I’d really like to see a company who does this – or at least supports its developers in working from home. If you know of any, let me know – or maybe we’ll have to start one at some point :)