An app for the low carbon office

Are you a 20th or 21st century worker?

It's an environmental imperative to change the way we work, according to a new initiative supported by the WWF (Worldwide Fund for Nature). 

According to the 21st Century Office project:

"There will soon be nine billion people on the planet who all have the right to live a good life. Instead of approaching this as a problem we can embrace existing technologies that enable services to be delivered in new, smart and low-carbon ways."

This involves:

• Reducing office buildings both in number and size

• Reducing commuting

• Replacing physical business meetings with virtual meetings

• Dematerialising products - especially paper.

This is not only about effective use of technologies, but a new way of thinking about offices.  The office should be seen as a service that allows people to deliver what they should, and not as a physical place.  Buildings represent about 50% of the world's emissions.  And commuting to them creates additional environmental, as well as financial, costs.

To raise awareness and get people thinking about the environmental impacts of the way they work, the 21st Century Office project has developed an app that can be downloaded to iPhones and to Android operating systems

The 21st Century Office application allows people to:

measure their CO2, time and money savings from new technology solutions for smarter office work share, geotag, use and rate ideas how to achieve a 21st Century Office see where in the world ideas were first generated and then follow to see where the idea has been used twitter and e-mail ideas and test results to challenge others to participate and work smarter build up a database that can be used to create tailor-made roadmaps for a transition to a 21st Century office see a short movie that explains the difference between a 20th century and a 21st century infrastructure.

The app has two main objectives:

• Explore how web 2.0/mobile application can help deliver significant emission reductions

• Support companies that want to move towards a 21st Century office.

The app has been developed by a team headed by Dennis Pamlin, Executive Director for the project Low Carbon Leaders for Transformative Change, a project within UN Global Compact and Caring for Climate initiated in cooperation with WW. According to Dennis:

"This '21st Century office app' is a way of tapping in to millions of people around the world that can contribute, rate and begin to use ideas that help them move towards a 21st century office. New technology allows us today to generate tailor-made guides (not just general tips) and based on the input in this app we will create, in collaboration with those interested, an outline for toolbox where people can find different ways to move towards a smarter office style. It is my strong believe that tailor-made guides are necessary for transformative change. I hope this app will help open up a door to the kind of changes that we need.

"The feedback has been fantastic. It's become the top business app on Apple's appstore and featured on the 'what's hot list'. The fact that people have commented and said that this tool help them become them less vulnerable to volcanoes and that increased use of the tool will help in avoiding the kind of mess BP have created outside Louisiana have also helped generate interest. The time for a 21st Century Office might finally have come. "

Why not try it out and see for yourself?

How did Flexibility do?

I'm mightily relieved, writes Andy Lake, that I've crossed the threshold with my working patterns into the 21st century - I guess I'd have a lot of egg on my face if I didn't!

It's a clever app, asking a small barrage of questions, and calculating performance in terms of emissions, time and money.  I work largely at home, travel a lot by train to meetings, replace many meetings with technology. 

Why am I not off the scale as an exemplar of 21st century working?  Too many flights.  And I'm too fond of books and newspapers. The real ones, with real paper ...

A key aim of the app is to make you think - and it certainly does that.

To try out the app online and  to download it, go to:

21st-century-office.net