Kurt Cagle's "Is Telework the New Face of the Agile Workforce?" is a love letter to all those wondering whether people who work at home are: 1. actually watching Oprah; and 2. thereby burning up a whole lot more watts. Say it ain't so! He does in a piece worth the clicky:
...Sun's ergonomics people connected P3 International's Kill A Watt meter, a portable power meter that can connect into a workstation, onto both their internal computer systems and the participants home (or mobile) connections. What they discovered was that teleworkers consumed about 64 watts per hour, while their office counterparts consumed more than double, 130 watts per hour, just on their equipment.
Yet the vast benefit came in slashing the commute. The energy costs involved in running office equipment accounted for less than 2% of the total carbon footprint for an employee, while almost all of the rest, 97%, was involved in the commute to and from the office each day. By reducing trips to the office to 2 ½ days a week, a typical employee managed to save 5,400 kilowatt hours per year, according to Kristi McGee, senior director for Sun's Open Work services group.
