Aidan Harper argues that improving people’s work-life balance could also contribute to achieving necessary environmental change: “In 2008, the Utah state government carried out a mass trial of a four-day week with 18,000 employees (albeit working 10-hour days), in response to the financial crash and ensuing budget restrictions. By reducing the number of government employee commutes, it was estimated that the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions associated with personal vehicle use — in relation to in-work behaviour — was the equivalent to taking a thousand cars off the road (which would have had a positive impact on air pollution too). … It is easy to think of the environmentally damaging things we do when we are resource rich but time-poor: driving instead of cycling, buying ready-made meals, weekend vacations, and energy intensive consumer products. A four-day week, combined with other policies which disincentive carbon intensive activities, could help shift our society towards one which engages in more sustainable behaviours. … [I]f the four-day week were a central part of a raft of sustainable policy changes within a Green New Deal, it could result in a change which cuts our ecological footprint in a way which could improve wellbeing, public health, and revitalise our communities.”
2 October 2019