The report states that over 40% of UK jobs are
compatible with working from home, yet points
out that just 35% of companies have a policy that
supports home-working.Where home-working is
offered by companies, between one third and one
half of employees choose not to accept it.
Workplaces that can realise the greatest
immediate environmental benefits from a shift to
home-working tend to be those with long average
employee commutes, especially by car, and where
employers are contemplating a move to new
premises.
However, the Carbon Trust warns that carbon
savings may not be achieved if home-working
results in employees having to work in poorly
insulated homes that cost a lot to heat.
It says home working works best in
organisations with the following indicators:
Desire to rationalise office space
: The office lease
is coming up for renewal, offering the possibility
of moving to a smaller office as a cost-cutting
measure; alternatively, the current office is
overcrowded and there is pressure to move to a
larger, more expensive office.
Paperless office:
The IT department has
completed, or is in the process of rolling out,
a programme to store documents in the cloud
and implement facilities such as soft phones,
Beware cyber-squatters
As the first websites hosted on
the new .london domain go live,
businesses and trademark holders are
being advised to protect themselves
from the risk of cyber-squatting.
The .london web address forms part
of the new generic top-level domain
(gTLD) programme run by the global
internet body ICANN, which is making
available new gTLDs based on English
words, such as .equipment and .tips,
foreign language words and brand names
such as .neustar.
Matt Sammon, partner at patent
and trade mark attorney firm Marks &
Clerk, said: “.london and all the other
new domain names present great
branding opportunities, but also great
branding risks to businesses. It will allow
businesses to associate their name with
an iconic city brand, but will also give
room to domain name squatters to
take advantage by buying up .london
addresses using other companies’ names.
“Avenues exist for businesses to
defend their trademarks without having
to actually buy a web address.Whether
or not a business is based in London, it
can pre-empt abusive registrations under
the .london domain or any other of the
new domains by registering its details
with ICANN’s Trademark Clearinghouse.
“Registered trade mark holders,
London businesses and individuals will
have priority over .london web addresses
until September, at which point all
interested parties will be given equal
access to available .london addresses.”
Cyber security
The Cyber Essentials certification
programme is now live. Announced in
April, as part of a £860 million National
Cyber Security Programme, Cyber
Essentials certification shows that an
organisation has measures in place
to protect itself from common cyber
threats. From 1 October 2014, the
Government will require all suppliers
bidding for certain personal and sensitive
information-handling contracts to be
Cyber Essentials-certified.
agenda
Homeworking not always the
greenest option
Property level, map-accurate,
thermal infrared images supplied by
Bluesky to Harrow Council reveal
different levels of heat loss from
properties and highlight heat spots
that could be caused by illegal
dwellings or cannabis factories.
When combined with additional
information within the Council’s
Geographical Information System,
the images can also be used to
select individual properties for
energy efficiency improvements or
help with fuel bills.
teleconferencing and instant messenger.
Receptive senior management:
The culture of
senior management is not against homeworking
and is likely to be influenced by a strong business
case.
Long employee commutes:
The longer the
average commute time, the greater the potential
cost, time and environmental benefits for
employees.
Suitable working environment at home:
It is
important that the home environment provides
somewhere conducive to work such that
employees are productive, and somewhere that
can be heated at minimal marginal cost.
Reported carbon footprint:
Your organisation
reports on its carbon footprint.
When building a business case, The Carbon
Trust advises organisations to gather information
on the current rent and energy costs; carry out
an occupancy survey to determine the number of
unoccupied desks at different times during the day;
discuss with the IT department whether current
security and file-sharing approaches would support
home-working; gather data from employees on
their current commute times and mode of travel;
and review which policies relate to homeworking
and to what extent they need to be updated.
Homeworking: helping businesses cut
costs and reduce their carbon footprint
CTC830
In a new report,
Homeworking: helping businesses cut costs
and reduce their carbon footprint
, the Carbon Trust claims
that widespread adoption of homeworking could save £3bn
a year in costs and cut carbon emissions by over 3 million
tonnes. The UK currently has 4 million homeworkers out of
a workforce of 30 million.
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