Work From Home. Save Some Green. Save The Planet.

I don't know about any of you, but I know that I have spent many hours driving to and from work or even to business meetings. Not only have I spent a lot of time, but in doing so I have spent a lot of money in my effort. In addition to those negative aspects of my daily commute, I have also produced a lot of CO2 emissions as I burned fuel to travel the distance each day. I can't help but think that all Americans could benefit from driving less each week to work. As we will see below, it can lead to less stress, additional money in our pockets, a better environment, and more productivity in our jobs.

According to this 2005 ABC News Poll Americans spend an average of 52 minutes or an average of 32 miles each day on the road in order to get to work. So if your car gets an average of 20 MPG and gas costs $2.00 per gallon, then you are spending $800 per year just to drive to work. This also adds up to more than 200 hours spent driving...in traffic...not being productive. Lastly, according to CarbonFund.org's carbon calculator, my car would have emitted 2.84 tons of carbon into the atmosphere. There has got to be a better way.

Is it truly worth it to go into the office each day of the week? Yes, the interaction with coworkers is important to establishing team unity, friendships, and the all important networking. But what if we could work from home 20% of the time or maybe even 40%. If we worked from home two days a week then we could almost cut the above numbers in half. Traffic would be reduced since less cars are on the road, employees would be more productive, and the employees and employer would save money each year.

There are a multitude of services out there which would allow employees to access there work computers from home. The most popular being GoToMyPC. This low costs service is easy to use and makes it entirely possible to work from home and have access to all the same information on your work computer without any security risk. Also, for those business meetings with clients that can take you across the county, state, or even country the same company makes a product called GoToMeeting. With this product companies can hold employee training sessions, sales meeting, client presentations, etc. without ever leaving your home or office.

Another option that is gaining traction is the option to work only 4 days a week, 10 hour per day. This allows employees to accumulate the same amount of hours per week, but ultimately have 3 days off each week. I know that city workers, like police officers and fire man, have always had this option available, but now may be a good time to introduce into your company.

Have any other ideas for ways to drive less each week and to have more free time to your yourselves?