Telecommuting solves GW…

reader mcwop sends this book review for us to read:

We looked at this issue as part of a background study in support of a book we’re working on titled Undress For Success: The Naked Truth About Working From Home to be published by John Wiley & Sons.

The top part of the results form shows the financial, pertroleum and CO2 savings produced by people who already work at home. The bottom part shows the additional savings that could be realized if those who could work at home, did.

Workforce Assumptions
Size of workforce and existing work at home workforce numbers comes from the U.S. Census Bureau – Means of Transportation To Work (B08301) 2006 American Community Survey.

The data on means of transportation to work were derived from answers to Question 25, which was asked of people who indicated in Question 23 that they worked at some time during the reference week. Means of transportation to work refers to the principal mode of travel or type of conveyance that the worker usually used to get from home to work during the reference week.

People who used different means of transportation on different days of the week were asked to specify the one they used most often, that is, the greatest number of days.

• Percent Who Could Work At Home = 40%
CEA Energy & Greenhouse Gas Emissions Impact – page 47. Matthews and Williams (2005) estimate that information workers that could have the potential to telecommute represent 40% of the U.S. workforce. Excludes those who already do, regardless of how often the work from home.

• Roundtrip Minutes to Work = 52
Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) Omnibus Household Survey – Average commute is 15 miles each way (26 minutes)

• Number of days/week each worker telecommutes = 5

• Number of workweeks/yr = 48
Excludes 2 weeks vacation, 5 paid holidays, and 5 sick days.

Per Person Assumptions
• Commuting miles saved / per person = 30
Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) Omnibus Household Survey. Average commute is 15 miles each way (26 minutes) – Avg. miles not avail by region

• Per Person Savings in Days = (5 days a week, times 48 weeks per year, times 52 minutes) divided by 60 minutes, divided by an 8 hour work day. Essentially this is additional free time the telecommuter realizes each year.

• Percent of reduced travel from telecommuting = 65%
2005 Reason Foundation — The Quiet Success: Telecommuting’s Impact on Transportation and Beyond. Page 3. Telecommuters reduce their daily trips by 53 to 77% on telecommuting days. We’ve used 65% in our calculation but many telework researchers argue the number is closer to 90% because the side stops they would have made on the way to or from work are eliminated or are handled together in a more efficient fashion.

• MPG = 20.3
EPA MOBILE6.2 2003 (EPA’ computer model) weighted average of 23.9 mpg for cars and 17.4 mpg for light trucks. Your mileage, as they say, may vary.

• $ Saved per person / yr assuming $3.50/gallon

Aggregate Numbers
• Gallons saved/year
Gallons per person savings times the number of teleworkers

• $ Saved
$ Saved per person time the number of workers

• Barrels Saved:
Gallons of gas per barrel of crude = 0.466667
42 gallons (1 barrel) of crude equals 19.6 gallons of gas.
? Energy Information Administration, Petroleum Supply Annual 2005, June 2006.
Greenhouse Gas Savings (aggregate/yr)

• CO2 savings in pounds = 19.4
A gallon of gasoline is assumed to produce 8.8 kilograms (or 19.4 pounds) of CO2. This number is calculated from values in the Code of Federal Regulations at 40 CFR 600.113-78, which EPA uses to calculate the fuel economy of vehicles, and relies on assumptions consistent with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) guidelines.

• CO2 savings in metric tons (converted) = 0.00045359
Conversion to metric tons: pounds to metric tons = .00045359237