Lets analyse this in-person meeting

Peter du ToitI'm the founder of FutureWork IQ where I spend my time assisting businesses to improve their climate literacy so as to understand the projected impacts from the expanding climate crisis and how to adapt their workplaces in the face of these impacts.

Every now and again it is a really good to pause and analyse how we do things. Is there a better way? A way that is kinder to people and the planet? Let’s analyse the time and emissions required for this synchronous in-person meeting.

7:30 prepare for commute
8:15am commence commute
8:45am arrive at office
9am meeting start

Total time required to be at 9am meeting = 1.5hrs x 4 participants = 6hrs

Commute Emissions: Average return journey from home to office = 25km’s x 180g CO2 emissions/km traveled = 4.5kg CO2 emitted x 4 participants = 18kg CO2 emitted.

So this 1 hour meeting with 4 participants requires a collective investment of 6 hours and 18kg of CO2 to attend in-person.

Lets decide to have this same synchronous meeting online

8:15am prepare for meeting
9am meeting start

Total time required to be at 9am virtual meeting 45min x 4 participants = 3hrs

Commute Emissions: Zero

A 1 hour virtual meeting with 4 participants requires a collective investment of 3 hours and zero commute emissions to attend.

Now let’s decide to this have this same meeting asynchronously in a document

0 preparation hours required to attend
0 commute emissions emitted

“Normal” was very wasteful of everyone’s time and bad for the planet. Why go back to that? 

We have the technology and the know-how to do things very differently and improve life for everyone.