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Making Telecommuting Good for Business
Dan Simon
While
many employees would like to try telecommuting, employers have been
reluctant to embrace the idea. Now one company hopes its innovative
software, coupled with government efforts to reduce pollution and
gridlock, may be enough to change some minds.
 The firm Teletrips, Inc. has pioneered software that will allow employers to track how many commuting miles its employees save. Those miles can then be exchanged for pollution credits, which can be sold to polluters enabling them to meet tighter environmental standards under the Kyoto Protocol.
The United States Environmental Protection Agency has been trying to get such a program off the ground for a little over a year now. Unfortunately, the agency has run into several snags. The biggest of which is that the non-profit contractor it hired to oversee the "eCommute" program has filed for bankruptcy protection. The agency is expected to announce a new program manager soon, but even when the program is back up and running, lack of employer interest may hinder its success.
"We only had two or three companies express any interest at all when the program was running," said Stacey Bartels of the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, the Philadelphia region's point of contact for eCommute.
One reason for such poor response may be because the potential financial rewards aren't enough to overcome employer disinterest. The emerging market for pollution credits is still a ways away from actually paying off as a financial investment. The going rate for such credits may not be worth the trouble for any but the biggest of companies.
"Any market will start out low and increase over time," said Mary Beatty, president of Teletrip Inc., USA. "This market is in the infant stages at this time."
Right now, estimates of the value of pollution credits run from $1 to $15 a ton, she said, with credits based on distance normally traveled and the type of vehicle the telecommuter uses.
"Take one commuter who telecommutes an average of 30 miles twice a day," Beatty explained. "If one is saving a 30-mile round trip, after a year he will save 1.2 tons of CO2, so if you have 100 telecommuters saving that amount on average you're saving 100 tons of pollution in your company. The company can either use it as an offset or sell it in a competitive market, and that's one of the things Teletrips can offer is selling the credits to the highest bidder."
Complicating the matter has been this country's refusal to sign the Kyoto treaty, thus making U.S. pollution credits less valuable than those of signature nations. So figure pollution credits for U.S. employers being at the low end of the range. Based on those figures, a company that has 100 employees telecommuting might realize a few hundred dollars a year as a reward for joining the program.
Of course there are other potential benefits to employers who let their people work from home. Several reasons include the need to lease less office space and, in the wake of last year's terrorist attacks, potential lower insurance rates for having fewer employees concentrated in one location and less risk to the company's human capital as well.
Teletrip's Canadian headquarters may be having more success than its U.S. branch. The company recently signed a consortium of energy companies to purchase pollution credits and provide the beginnings of a market. It's also planning trial runs in Calgary and Edmonton. Alberta's government has also expressed interest in the plan.
"Since the United States hasn't committed to reducing carbon emissions it (the selling price of pollution credits) will probably be less than the international market," Beatty said. "That's why we're working with Canada, as they're more likely to sign Kyoto."
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