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An Open Letter to Athabasca University ColleaguesDear Colleagues: As you likely know AU is in the process of conducting a review of its telecommuting policy. In arriving at your conclusions about the teleworking arrangements, I ask that you consider the positive environmental and humanitarian benefits telecommuting produces. Telecommuting is not just about AU. It is also about the fate of the planet and the well-being of all the world's inhabitants, including the majority of the human population that is too poor to afford motor vehicle travel. With the depletion of fossil fuels, wealthy countries are now turning to traditional food crops and other agricultural solutions to sustain their addiction to motor vehicle travel. This in turn, for example, is now making corn unaffordable for many Mexican people who already live on a subsistence diet. InnoVisions Canada, an organization that promotes teleworking, estimates that for each day per week of teleworking, each teleworker prevents the emission of 250 kg of CO2 per year, saves 100 litres of fuel per year, reduces vehicle travel by 800 km per year, saves $40 per year of fuel costs, and frees up 50 hours of additional time. Based on these estimates, if 200 AU employees were to use teleworking five days per week the following benefits result:
Individuals often feel a sense of powerlessness when confronting issues such as global warming, air pollution and world hunger. However, we at AU are uniquely positioned within higher education to have a pivotal impact on these issues through our telecommuting practices. By committing to teleworking at AU, we have the opportunity to act locally to continue to fashion a teleworking environment that can serve as a model for many others who work in post-secondary education. In this way our efforts at AU have the potential to have a multiplier effect on the environmental benefits we alone can produce. During AU's existence we have successfully created an institution where students can pursue their aspirations in higher education without burning fossil fuels to transport themselves to a common physical location. In doing so, we have taken an important step in the transition from a culture that is dependent on fossil fuels to a sustainable culture of reduced energy consumption that makes use of renewable energy sources. In a 2005 study, researchers at the Open University found that on average, students attending "distance learning courses consumed nearly 90% less energy and produced 85% fewer CO2 emissions" than students attending campus-based university courses. In creating a networked learning environment for our students, we realized in the Strategic University Plan of 2002-2006 that the same basic model we had been using with our students could also be applied to many AU staff. At that time the teleworking and telecommuting policies came into effect, and affected AU staff were able to adopt the same kind of environmentally sustainable work style that our own students and tutors had been using for many years. I ask that you to consider continuing the environmental benefits initiated in the 2002-2006 SUP. As a result of the current review of the teleworking policy, we are at risk of turning back the clock to a dark AU past of unsustainable fossil fuel consumption and needless associated environmental damage. With the increasing diversion of the world's food supply to fuel motor vehicles, there is more at stake than ever before. All I ask in the upcoming review is that you consider teleworking from environmental and humanitarian perspectives. The planet you save may be your own. Thanks, Lyle P.S. I've included below several links concerning teleworking and its beneficial effects as well as sources for the assertions and the quote in the above letter: The David Suzuki Foundation: Nature Challenge Newsletter Telecommuting and the Environment |