I guessed somehow my interest in my new Austin home town would eventually spill over into my professional life. It happended though in a way I couldn’t have predicted.

One of the people I follow on twitter is IT Industry Robin Bloor. Bloor is also an ex-pat living here in Texas, we only met a few times back in the 90’s. He is currently a Partner with Hurwitz and Associates in the US and also maintains contacts with Bloor Research, the analyst company he founded and established in the UK.

Yesterday Robin posted 10 Green Questions on his Have Mac will blog, blog. My first reaction was this as another green IT blog, but wait the first question was about plastic bags! Oh ok, its broader than just IT… but then I chuckled my way therough the remaining entry, which included Question 8. of interest here since I know fellow Austin metblog Author @lauratex regularly works from various coffee shops around the ‘hood on her bicycle, and I work from home from time to time, and by coincidence my drive to the office is 12-miles and I do bike it from time to time.

Here is Question 8 and Robins analysis, enjoy the rest here.

Question 8: Is it greener to work from home?

Answer: On the plus side you wont be commuting. The average work journey in the US is 12 miles, and each gallon of gas burned emits 25.3 pounds of carbon dioxide (CO2). Imagine you don’t own a gas guzzler but a 25 mpg car. In which case you’re spewing about 25 pounds of CO2 into the air per day (6000 lbs per year) melting glaciers, raising the sea level and killing polar bears. However, if you stay home you’ll be using more air conditioning or heating, the extent of which could easily total as much. Don’t work from home, get a bicycle and work from Starbucks.

(We’d like to thank Starbucks and their very green logo for sponsoring this eco-friendly posting, but they didn’t sponsor it, so we can’t. If an offer to sponsor it doesn’t arrive in the next few days I’m gonna calculate the carbon footprint of a Starbucks cup of coffee and post it here… You’ve been warned Starbucks….)