Virginia commuters saved $113,000 and removed about 76 tons of pollutants from the air by working at home Aug. 3.
More than 4,000 commuters participated in “Telework Day,” including 878 in Northern Virginia. Richmond boasted the most participants, with 1,211, according to a new study.
Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine commended participants.
“The results are clear — telework plays an important role in meeting the commonwealth’s green objectives, reducing strain and traffic on our roads, increasing savings for our employees, and will provide our businesses with increased employee productivity,” he said.
Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., also touted benefits to teleworking beyond mere cost savings associated with driving to and from work.
“Teleworking can also increase productivity, typically 10 percent to 40 percent per person in large programs, by eliminating the often distressing and frustrating commute to and from work,” he said.
Indeed, in Virginia, 69 percent of participants said they accomplished more at home than they would on a normal workday, the report said.
The state Department of Rail and Public Transportation projected that if “all interested teleworkers with suitable jobs” teleworked one day a week for 50 weeks, they would collectively remove more than 360,000 tons of pollutants from the air and save more than $800 million in commuting costs. That assumes 440,000 potential teleworkers statewide, that 82 percent of commuters drive alone, and that the average commute is 33.4 miles. A car averaging 25 miles per gallon will produce about 5.4 tons of greenhouse gas pollution a year.
The report was compiled by Telework Exchange, a public-private partnership.
A total of 2,286 federal and private sector employees, as well as 1,765 state employees, participated in Telework Day. There are more than 100,000 job listings in the state government, according to virginia.gov. Just 5 percent of the federal government’s 1.9 million employees telework, though it’s not clear how many of the nearly 300,000 who work in the Washington region are among those workers.
