Human activities create about 38 billion tons of carbon dioxide each year, and governments regulate only a fraction of that amount. When the United States decides to establish a carbon trading system as Europe already has done, reducing CO2 emissions will quickly become a corporate measurement. And I am not talking factory emissions only. Some companies have already begun measuring and verifying the benefits of green at the individual level, offering a cash rebate to employees who purchase a hybrid vehicle, reducing space and power costs in exchange for home offices for telecommuting employees, and beginning to evaluate a wholesale change in how and where their people work.

Flexible work arrangements including telecommuting, compressed work weeks and job sharing have gradually gained ground since the 1980’s and programs exist in most corporations to support diversity and flexibility. It is widely agreed that flexible work improves employee retention, increases job satisfaction and may improve productivity. These gains, however, are difficult to measure and the savings are at best approximations. The drag on the evolution of how, when and where people work is evolutionary. People generally won’t change the usual way they do things or even evaluate how they do things unless they are encouraged to do so. One such continuum is casual Friday which has given way to work from home Friday in many corporate environments.

Data abounds to calculate and verify the cost savings for an employee telecommuting once a week. For the company who pays an employee who earns $40K annually to work from home once a week, company savings ramp to $12,000 in the second year based simply on reduced sick days, space and equipment savings, reduced turnover costs, and reduced parking requirements.

The challenge for leaders in government and corporations is to replace telecommute with telework and relate a new work structure around issues that matter and can be measured. The time is right around the corner for companies in California to totally revisit how their work gets done and revamp their organizations to work productively from home. Carbon emissions are a great tangible with real financial ramifications.