On average,  UK workers spend one day every fortnight travelling to and from work.  25 million commuters go to a fixed place of work every day and of these 18 million go by car, compressed into a few hours in the morning and evening rush hours.  Annual UK Office commuting alone produces19.7 million tonnes of CO2 emission.

With cost pressures,  performance and carbon emission targets becoming increasingly challenging,  coupled with high workplace stress levels and long working hours,  is it still sensible for people to spend long hours commuting to “the office” ?

While car travel is one of the big carbon emitters,  buildings (and particularly offices) are by far the biggest  source accounting for over 40% of the total UK emission of 153 million tonnes of CO2.  So reducing the daily commute in “gas guzzling” cars is one way of helping sustain the planet,  but perhaps using this to also reduce the need for “carbon guzzling” under utilised office space is even more effective in reducing carbon footprint.

Implementing and developing agile working can if managed well meet the sustainability targets of reducing both travel and the office footprint for many organisations.  This twin  focus on agility and sustainability – sustainagility – can reduce environmental impact as well as property related costs,  but also improve service resilience,  business and individual productivity,  customer focus,  and create better “work life” balance and CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility).

Increasingly,  forward thinking management aware of sustainagility benefits are allowing,  promoting,  setting up and supporting more staff to work ‘agile’ and remotely - from home on a regular or ‘ad hoc’ basis,  from ‘third places’ and on the move – utilising technology to limit the need to come into the office,  working closer with customers and in the community,  whilst also staggering work patterns so employees can avoid peak travel times,  overall enabling more productive working.

In the public sector,  Ofsted is the largest home-based government organisation employing over 2,000 staff,  of which 60% are home-based inspectors.  For Ofsted the idea of homeworking is not about reducing costs,  but about improving efficiency through flexibility and locating staff where the work is.  Nevertheless,  the move to homeworking significantly reduced Ofsteds building footprint from 8 to 3 buildings.

In other organisations the drive to reduce carbon footprint coupled with a desire to move resources to a more variable cost base is encouraging a change towards a virtual existence.  BT has 70,000 remote enabled workers as well as 15,000 registered Home Workers which has allowed the Company to reduce its office space by 50% in the last decade.  Supporting agile workers through BT’s extensive use of teleconferencing has eliminated the need for over 850,000 face to face meetings a year,  saving £135m in travel related costs and 97,000 tonnes of carbon as well as £103m in productivity benefits.

Unilever’s Agile Working programme made new software available to enable employees to hold virtual meetings through online discussion forums,  document-sharing and presentation capability.  This enabled its people to work more flexibly and interact with their colleagues from work,  home or while travelling.  By 2009  some 97,000 virtual meetings were held,  and with over 40 000 employees using the technology,  savings on travel costs,  CO2 reductions and improved work–life balance are significant.

One of the largest Local Authority investment programmes in progress,  Birmingham City Councils “Working for the Future” is designed to transform the Council’s operational property portfolio to enable improvements in customer service delivery,  offer new ways of working and enhance the work environment for employees.  The key elements are focused on enabling agile working across the Council through the introduction of new work styles,  working practice guidance and new ICT technologies,  as well as providing improved more sustainable workplaces.

The City Council aims to make savings of £100m over 25 years through consolidating the council’s office portfolio.  The programme is also significantly reducing the Council carbon footprint not only through creating the ability for people to work remotely – reducing unnecessary travel, but also by reduction in floor space (35% reduction in its 1 million sq ft back office estate) as well as  upgrading and trading in old inefficient space for 3 new “green” buildings on “brownfield” regeneration sites.

The “drivers” (excuse the pun) and enablers of change for new ways of working are clearly visible and available to most organisations.  So has there ever been a better time or justification to implement and gain the benefits of sustainagility?

Paul Allsopp, The Agile Organisation
www.agile.org.uk