Can a four-day Workweek Help Climate Change?

Can reducing the workweek to four days have a climate benefit? While it is not conclusive, many experts say “yes.” In addition to improving the well-being of workers, they say slashing working hours may reduce carbon emissions. It’s what you might call a “potential triple-dividend policy, so something that can benefit the economy, society and also the environment. There are not many policy interventions that are available to us that could potentially have the kind of transformative impact that reduced work time could have.

Over the years, studies have documented a link between fewer working hours and lower emissions — reductions that experts explain may be the result of changes to commuting, energy use and lifestyle habits. In one analysis of data, looking at more than two dozen countries from 1970 to 2007, it was predicted that if work hours were reduced by 10 percent, there could be drops in ecological footprint, carbon footprint and carbon dioxide emissions by 12.1 percent, 14.6 percent and 4.2 percent, respectively. From years of data and various papers, the countries with short hours of work tend to be the ones with low emissions, and work time reductions tend to be associated with emission reduction.

While there’s no one arguing that the four-day workweek is a silver bullet that will address all of our environmental concerns in one go, it can be a very powerful enabler and a very powerful contributor. There are several components which contribute:

Commuting and Travel: Transportation is the biggest contributor to greenhouse emissions and commuting is a big part of that. For example, in 2020, the transportation sector accounted for about 27 percent of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. And you may have noticed, traffic in Atlanta is back in a big way.

The potential benefits of cutting down on commuting and travel were perhaps most noticeable during the early months of the coronavirus pandemic. When stay-at-home orders were in place, the emissions from driving, flying and industrial output were dramatically reduced. Air quality in cities around the world showed marked improvement, while global emissions plummeted. Global emissions plunged an unprecedented 17 percent during the coronavirus pandemic.

Largely fueled by the pandemic, a widespread adoption of remote and hybrid work models may mean many are already commuting less even if they work five days a week, but officially adopting a four-day workweek could benefit industries that are still largely in-person. A November 2021 survey of 2,000 employees and 500 business leaders in the United Kingdom found that if all organizations introduced a four-day week, the reduced trips to work would decrease travel overall by more than 691 million miles a week.

The question which could negate benefits from a four-day work week: What are they going to be doing on the fifth day, and what is the energy use associated with that, and how does it compare to what they would have been doing?”

Energy usage: Shorter working hours could lead to reductions in energy usage, experts said. According to a 2006 paper, if the United States adopted European work standards, the country would consume about 20 percent less energy. And if Europeans gave up those shorter workweeks, the authors wrote they would “consume some additional 25 percent more energy.” There’s a definite relation between production, consumption, and carbon emissions

Energy could also be conserved if less resources are needed to heat and cool large office buildings, reducing demands on electricity. Utah state government is an example. When it launched a four-day workweek trial among its employees in 2008, one report projected that shutting down buildings on Fridays would lead to a decrease of at least 6,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually. Any potential energy-saving gains, however, hinge on how companies and individuals use resources. For example, if an entire workplace shuts down on the fifth day, that would help lower consumption — less so if the office stays open to accommodate employees taking different days off. Energy consumption could also increase overall if people spend their day off at home or elsewhere doing activities that would use more resources than if they were at work.

Lifestyle changes: It’s possible that fewer working hours may lead some people to have a larger carbon footprint, but research suggests that most people are likely to shift toward more sustainable lifestyles. The majority view coalesces around the idea that intense working often leads to intense living. By offering people additional time back, you’re enabling people to have more time to make sustainable life choices.

Convenience is often carbon-intensive, and people opt for convenience when they’re time-stressed. The theory is that people who work more and have less free time tend to do things in more carbon-intensive ways, such as choosing faster modes of transportation or buying prepared foods. Conversely, those who work less may be more likely to engage in traditionally low-carbon activities, such as spending time with family or sleeping.

When we talk about the four-day workweek and the environment, we focus on the tangible, but actually, in a way, the biggest potential benefit here is in the intangible. It’s in the shift away from a focus on hard work to a focus on smart work. It’s the cultural change in how we work and the impact that could have on how we live. And while a shift to a four-day work week can certainly help mitigate climate change it’s important to remember it doesn’t matter how many days you work if we’re still using fossil fuels.