Did you know that virtual working helps reduce lots of greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution, fossil fuel consumption, plastic, and other paper waste? If you are among the people who care about the environment, then it’s high time you thought about how your daily work routine affects the environment.

Continue reading to find how virtual working can help to bring work-life balance through several positive environmental effects that come with online work. It’s all a win-win scenario.

How Virtual Jobs Are Helping To Environment

Though recently technology has seen huge improvements, more social cognizance as well as more tight governmental restrictions, the following are still among the top global environmental concerns.

• Fossil fuel reliance
• Greenhouse Gas emissions
• Air pollution
• High energy consumption
• High levels of plastic and paper waste

Since our daily activities, including commuting to and from our offices, contribute a noteworthy portion of this major issue, most of the concerned leaders and like-minded citizens are seeking ways to decrease the impacts that come with offices and vehicles.

The main idea is—the ones who work remotely drive less, create less office-related plastic waste, and consume significantly less energy.

Additionally, since you’ll be running a home office you can take care of small, but impactful things like using recyclable paper, efficient hosting for your website, or through making the choice to power your home with solar panels.

All this sounds wonderful. Is it? But does virtual working help to reduce environmental degradation effects? For sure, Yes! Read on to know how.

Virtual Workers use less gasoline

On average, Americans use more than 390 million gallons of gas every day. With about a population of 325 million citizens, each American uses an average of approximately 1.3 gallons of gas per day.

So, assuming about 25 million citizens take their job virtual, it will save the nation about 30 million gallons per workday.

Online Working Reduces Carbon Emissions

According to USEPA – the US Environmental Protection

Agency, each year, an average vehicle is estimated to emit like 4.8 metric tons of carbon dioxide every year. This is assuming that cars drive at an average of 11,400 miles annually.

As almost all the employees drive approximately 30 miles each workday – translating to more than 7,800 miles annually. It shows that everyone can reduce carbon dioxide by more than 60%.

The total savings here are equal to:

• Planting more than 2 billion trees every year
• Providing energy to more than 10 million homes annually
• Powering more than 40,000 wind turbines annually
• Recycling more than 29 million tons of waste annually

By simply working from home, you can help save the globe a great deal.

If we all can shift to online working and refrain from working from the offices, we can undoubtedly alleviate the nation’s contributions to the overall carbon emissions.

Both Virtual Working Helps to Reduce Air Pollution

Apart from carbon, driving also emits nitrous oxide into the air, volatile organic compounds, and particulate matter. All these pollutants carry with them both human health and environmental effects. For instance, Nitrogen dioxide causes respiratory issues like Asthma.

Additionally, when other nitrogen oxides react with ammonia or the other volatile organic compounds in the air, the resulting product alters the Ozone layer, water, and soil acidity, and other ecosystem diversities.

Online Jobs Use Less Energy

It is a fact that you will use energy, whether working from the office or the comfort of your couches. However, it is also a fact that employees tend to treat energy consumption differently when in their employer’s office than when at their home. This means that offices are identified with high levels of energy usage.

A study carried by Microsystems before Oracle acquired it demonstrated that you would consume twice the amount of energy when in offices than when in their homes.

Virtual Jobs Use Less Fossil Fuel

Fossil fuels contribute to the highest part of greenhouse gas emissions in the US. Fossils are burnt mainly for heat, electricity, or transportation.

Over 60% of the electricity that’s generated in the United States comes from fossil combustion.

This means that if employees turned to work from home, they would significantly decrease the demand for fossils. Also, over 90% of the fuel used to power your vehicle comes from petroleum products.

Online Workers Use Less Paper

According to UESPA, Americans use nearly 70 tons of paper as well as paperboard annually. Even though the government strives to recover and recycle more than 68% of the paper product every year, it still leaves more than 22 million tons of paper in American landfills only.

What about the other nations that have no strict recycling guidelines?

In fact, virtual workers use emails and other cloud-based software programs to send messages, submit files, take notes, and create documents. This translates into reduced printing, paper filing, faxing, and label marking every day.

Virtual Workers Use Less Plastic

To date, the world has generated about ten billion tons of plastic. This should not surprise you considering the many people who buy breakfast, coffee, and lunch each workday.

Ranging from coffee cups lids, food packaging products, plastic beverage bottles as well as plastic carrier bags that almost every worker carries home every evening sum up to this surprising amount of plastic.

As a virtual worker, you can visit the coffee shop and other local eateries they do so like one or two times per week. This is because they have the convenience of refilling their coffee cups from their kitchen coffee pots, reuse dishware, and sometimes eat leftovers.

Online Workers Have More Time for The Environment

Virtual working can help you create more life balance, leaving lots of free time to activities that matter more. Some of the things that matter for most individuals include volunteering to an environment upgrading programs, hiking and spending your free time with nature, gardening in your backyard, or even taking part in community clean-ups.

There are a thousand ways to care for the environment in the form of caring for the animals, rehabilitating ecosystems in addition to spreading the environment-friendly gospel to help others care for the environment.

Bottom Line

From the above view, we have seen that Virtual working highly helps us to care for our environment. The benefits that come with working for your environment and your company make it a win-win strategy.

It’s time that employers trusted their employees to give them the required rights and let them work from home for the benefits of our global environment.

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Glow-in-the-dark roads recently debuted on a 500 meter stretch of Netherlands highway!  Brought to you by the guy behind glow-in-the-dark trees.  He’s been burning the candle at both ends – not so much to increase light levels, more to roll out new applications of his natural luminescence designs.

Standard street lighting has been replaced by light-absorbing glow-in-the-dark road markings in this pilot project, first proposed by Studio Roosegaarde in 2012, now installed after an arduous government approval process.

All reports indicate that the road safety project is more like a stunning art installation. A local news report said, “It looks like you are driving through a fairy tale.”

Daan Roosegaarde, studio founder and lead designer, told ARStechnica, “I was sitting in my car amazed by these roads we spend millions on – but no one seems to care what they look like and how they behave. I started imagining this Route 66 of the future where technology jumps out of the computer screen and becomes part of us.”

He imagined road lighting provided by naturally glowing plant life or bio-engineered surface coatings. He thought about markings integral to road surfaces that would be triggered by temperature change to broadcast weather news to travelers (see image above).

This project is limited to glow-in-the-dark road markings on the N329 highway in Oss, and was developed in cooperation with road construction company Heijmans by combining photo-luminescent powder into road paint.  

There is tremendous potential for products like these given stressed government budgets, ratcheting transportation operation and maintenance costs and ever-increasing demand for electricity. Heijmans plans to expand the project after monitoring performance of this first installation, but some challenges are expected. The paint emits light for up to eight hours but light quality is diminished by uneven application or rough surfaces.  Eight hours is also insufficient in longer hours of northern winter darkness.

Studio Roosegaarde is a social design lab where artist Daan Roosegaarde with his team of designers and engineers create interactive designs that explore the dynamics between people, technology and space. They aim to bring technology and design to the real world, with practical and beautiful results.

Roosegaarde makes an open plea to governments around the globe to facilitate labs like his, “We should create labs in the city where we can experiment and explore these kinds of solutions. Like a free zone. We want to do it safely, but just give us a park and we’ll prove it to you. Be more open.”

Direct application of glowing pavement markings are impractical throughout much of the Middle East, where roads are not naturally cleansed of dust and oil by frequent precipitation. Here in Amman, light-reflective road markings are rendered ineffective soon after installation as vehicles grind dirt and debris into the sun-softened thermoplastic paint – preventing the light-reflecting components of the coating from performing their intended function. Bit this extraordinary pilot is a promising first step towards embedding renewable technologies into transportation.

Images from Studio Roosegaarde

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Kénitra is a port city about 35 miles north of Rabat in Morocco.

The design references vernacular Moroccan architecture and makes America’s Amtrak look like a dinosaur in comparison.

The trio’s striking collaborative design took first place in an international design competition that called for a state-of-the-art and sustainable 10,000 square meter high speed railway station complete with an assortment of amenities and retail facilities.

There are two entrances to the station – one from Place du 11 janvier and another from Place de la Maamara, and there are also two levels.

The lower levels contain the shops, kiosks, cafes, and waiting areas, as well as a central ticket office and even boutique stories. From there passengers can access the railway station via escalators that lead to a U-shaped ‘grand passerelle’ or elevated bridge.

Related: Stop TGV campaign challenges Morocco’s high speed rail initiative

In addition to incorporating geometric designs familiar in vernacular Moroccan architecture, the lacy pattern diffuses sunlight and ensures plenty of natural light and ventilation throughout the station. This is really important as anyone who has ever traveled by train in Morocco can tell you.

Not only do the ventilation techniques reduce the station’s energy demand, but they make waiting for the trains in stations that are packed with people (unlike in the United States, where many people think they are too cool to show up in anything other than a car) infinitely more comfortable.

Lastly, the design team has incorporated rainwater harvesting systems into their design, a smart, passive water conservation technique that is becoming increasingly necessary and common in Middle Eastern and North African architecture projects.

Morocco’s ubiquitous public transportation initiatives, albeit contentious among those who believe they do not serve the interests of all communities, put the supposedly more advanced and progressive United States to shame!

:: World Architecture News

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Consider what it takes for a car to drive down the road without input from a driver: it has to be able to change lanes, stay in the center of its own lane, preferably avoiding crashing into pedestrians or other objects , and it needs to stop at traffic lights.

Artificial vision safety systems like those for which Mobileye is known are essential to the success of automated vehicles. Cameras located on different parts of the car synchronize with the vehicle’s navigation system to automatically perform the various functions that the driver would normally take care of.

In the case of a driverless vehicle that the Israeli company and Tesla are said to be developing together, there will be five cameras – two in front, one in the back, and one on either side of the car, according to TheMarker and Ha’aretz.

Their system, which has already been tested on cars made by Opel, Audi, Toyota and Nissan, will allow vehicles to cross intersections not moderated with traffic lights and switch lanes on busy roads without hitting neighboring cars.

But it won’t allow drivers to tune out and take a nap, says Mobileye Founder Prof. Amnon Shashua.

“This is not automatic driving in which the driver types an address and goes to sleep,” Shashua told TheMarker. “The system allows control to be given to it for a limited period. You can read a text message or change the radio station and give temporary control to the cameras.”

Until now, Tesla’s appearance in the Middle East has been limited – apart from a roadster spotting in Dubai, but this budding partnership suggests that the EV and driverless vehicle market could potentially explode in the region.

It’s also interesting to note that a technology developed in Israel should feature so ubiquitously, but relatively silently, in driverless vehicles produced by multiple automakers.

:: Ha’aretz

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A shout-out on social media urged participants to cycle to school and park their bikes near their classrooms, a provocative gesture, since (in stark contrast to US and EU schools) most Syrian campuses prohibit bikes.

Organizers, mostly engineering students, told Syria Untold that they aim “to change community habits and promote alternative transportation.”

Bikes reduce pollution and save Syria’s scarce petrol, which doubled in price since 2012.

Three years of brutal war have caused catastrophic losses for most Syrian businesses, but not for the city’s few bike shops. Sales are exploding as young Damascenes increasingly swap their cars for bikes to avoid epic traffic jams caused by hundreds of security checkpoints where every car is army-inspected.

This backdrop of car-woes (over half of the capital’s streets have been closed) likely underpins the wild success of the student campaign.

Hundreds of bicycles appeared on campuses; photos were shared on Facebook and supporters posted personal experiences. Professors joined in, as did local clerics. (Just a few months back only delivery men and newsboys rode bikes.)

The excellent turn-out was especially remarkable since average bike costs in Damascus hover at 400 Syrian pounds ($30), out of reach for many.

“I get to university in 20 minutes. It used to take me two hours by bus, depending on traffic,” said student Mohammad Sabbagh, “I can do whatever I want with my time now, as I don’t have to wait for the bus anymore.”

Cleric Mohammed Ali Malla posted, “To navigate the streets of Damascus, our only option is bicycles.”  Another user wrote, “When I’m stuck at a checkpoint and I see 32 bicycles in front of my car, I think to myself, I really need a bike.'”  Student Manar Masri said he took up cycling after he stumbled on the Facebook page, “It’s wonderful that all these people, especially young girls, want to cycle.”

In Syria, bicycles have been viewed as a poor-man’s means of transportation, with the emphasis on “man”.  Biking babes had been a rarity in this conservative Muslim country.  Concern over breaking traditions had stopped women, especially those wearing hijab, from using bikes.

“I wear hijab, and this was my first time riding a bike. I left my house with my brother, who encouraged me,” posted one rider, “You can do this on your own”, he told me, ‘Break your barrier of fear!’ This is where my adventure started. I continued and met many checkpoints, but everyone was very nice, some smiled and blessed me. It was an amazing and liberating experience and I encourage every girl to do the same. It feels awkward in the beginning but you quickly get used to it.”

But not everyone supports the idea. According to Middle East Online, a street seller complained as he watched a young woman ride past,  “Now we’ve seen it all!”

Image of Syrian cyclists from “She Wants a Bicycle Now” Facebook page

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120 students from across the Gulf region competed in the inaugural event sponsored by Taqa, Abu Dhabi’s national energy company.

Each team was given a basic kit, with which they spent five months building a hybrid, one-seater vehicle designed to maximize energy efficiency.

Each car was permitted to use 1.5 kilowatt hours of electrical energy and 3.8 liters of conventional gas.

Once their designs were complete, they met at Al Forsan in Khalifa City to put their engineering might to the test in two separate stages.

In the first stage, the Electric Grand Prix (E-GP), the teams drove their vehicles as far as they could for one hour relying strictly on the energy stores in their batteries.

The following day, on Friday, the teams used both their petrol and electric power to travel as far as possible in three hours in the Hybrid-Electric Grand Prix (HE-GP).

Qatar University’s team proudly completed 101 laps with their one seater.

“We are so proud to be titled as champions of the first ever TAQA GCC Hybrid-Electric Challenge,” said team leader Team leader Chresteen Fareed.

“Taking part in this event has been a great experience and has given us the chance to take what we have learnt in the classroom and apply it to a real life situation. It has been hard work and we have learnt a lot but most importantly we have had fun!”

The first of its kind in the Middle East but certainly not the last, the event is the next in a long string of Gulf initiatives designed to wean the region off its own fossil fuels and promote innovation in renewables and other green developments.

“The energy crisis that is facing all of us is here and world consumption of energy is growing exponentially, so everyone who is concerned about this knows the solution is to find new sources of energy,”  Dr Sami Ainane, a professor at the Petroleum Institute and event organizer, told the National.

Although the initiative and its turn out is wonderful in its own right, we can’t help but feel a little extra pride that a group of ladies won the final prize!

The post Empowered Qatari girls win first GCC hybrid electric car competition appeared first on Green Prophet.

The National reports that Abu Dhabi’s Executive Council approved a plan to develop a multibillion dollar, state-of-the art public transportation system.

Mostly they are motivated by the money lost when residents stay stuck in traffic for hours every day, but there are a host of other benefits associated with public transportation including greater happiness and productivity, and less pollution.

Still, the $1.61 billion dollar savings estimated by Abu Dhabi’s Department of Transportation by 2030 is nothing to scoff at, so the National Transport Authority will oversee five different rail projects worth $22.41 billion over the next several years.

And Siemens, the German multinational engineering and electronics conglomerate company headquartered in Munich and Berlin, has expressed an interest in working on the first phase.

“Abu Dhabi has pumped a lot of efforts in the last years to build highways, tunnels,” Joerg Scheifler, the chief executive for infrastructure and cities at Siemens in the Middle East, told The National in a recent interview.

“When your population reaches 1 million, you should start building things like metros and trams. They have been talking about metro and trams for many years, but now they are serious.”

For the first phase, 18 kilometers of rail will connect Zayed Sports City and Mina Port. Of that, five kilometers will be installed underground.

Siemens has joined other companies to undergo a pre-qualification process. Once that is complete, which is expected to occur in the fourth quarter, the firm will be able to participate in a tender process that is expected to take place next year.

This phase of the project will set Abu Dhabi back $7 billion and should be up and running by 2020.

Several Gulf states are preparing to reduce their dependence on cars. In the lead up to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, for example, that emirate is planning to build 158 miles worth of metro and rail lines both within Doha and beyond.

The emir recently chose the “vaulted spaces” design, which incorporates many traditional Islamic principles such as the arch, for the metro stations.

Unfortunately, many of these infrastructural developments are built on the backs of foreign workers who often endure conditions akin to modern day slavery. Hopefully this will not be the case in Abu Dhabi, which we have come to consider a leader in more responsible development.

The post Abu Dhabi is Phasing Out Cars and Siemens Wants to Help appeared first on Green Prophet.

Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani stopped by Qatar Rail recently to survey six designs and master plans submitted for the Doha metro project that will eventually boast 158 miles worth of public transportation within the city center and beyond.

A critical component of the Qatar Rail Development Program (QRDP), the metro will consist of four lines that will service World Cup visitors by 2022, but won’t fully mature until 2026.

Al-Thani selected ‘Vaulted Spaces’ for the metro station – an elegant design that incorporates the ancient Islamic arch as a core component.

This not only serves an important aesthetic function thanks to bright, modern materials that resemble the inside of an oyster shell (a reference to the emirate’s long pearling history – the main source of income prior to fossil fuel discoveries), but also helps to regulate both ventilation and light.

“The levels of the station will be opened to each other to give passengers the feeling of comfort, also merging the functions of lighting and ventilation in the shapes of the arches,” said CEO Saad Ahmed Al-Muhanadi, who added that work has already broken ground on 20 out of 25 stations.

Unlike the United States, where President Obama would have no say in such seemingly unimportant details as a metro design in Washington D.C., this design is so significant to Qatar that the Emir claimed responsibility for choosing one that best reflects the emirate’s vision of itself as a future world leader.

“We are proud of the Emir’s visit to Qatar Rail, as we consider it as an encouragement to us all and a motivation to put more efforts in order to provide a project which reflects the position of Qatar as a leader in the region in this field,” said Abdulla Abdul Aziz Al-Subai, the managing director at Qatar Rail and chairman of the Executive Committee, in recent statement.

“With this mega project, we are meeting Qatar’s ambitions and vision in creating a country that keeps pace and progress to that of the developed countries,” he added.

Qatar’s ascension to the world stage is both strategic and flawed. Note the various investments abroad, including London’s unloved Shard and a slew of exciting developments brewing within its own borders such as the high-tech solar-powered stadiums that will host World Cup matches.

But until the emirate’s leaders start responding to horrifying reports of modern day slavery, it remains hard to celebrate these potentially great urban amenities.

:: Trade Arabia

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Mohamed Alabbar, Chairman of Emaar Properties, and Ahmad Bin Byat, Chief Executive Officer of Dubai Holding, unveiled the joint venture’s masterplan last week Tuesday in Dubai.

The 6 million sq m (over 1,482 acres) waterfront development, which is expected to provide business opportunities for Dubai’s youth, is slated for construction along the banks of Dubai Creek, stretching from land linked to Al Khail Road and across Ras Al Khor.

Not only large in span, The Lagoons will host a smorgasbord of new business, cultural and retail facilities, including a massive waterfront shopping mall and healthcare facilities. Linked via a series of “green boulevards,” these interconnected districts will have at their core two new twin towers.

“The spectacularly designed project underlines the vision of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE Vice President and Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, to develop world-class urban projects that further establish Dubai as a global city of the future,” said Mohamed Alabbar and Ahmad Bin Byat in a joint statement.

“The project gives a significant boost to Dubai’s economy by creating another dynamic urban hub that energises the property, retail and tourism sectors. It will create new jobs and strong business opportunities for our youth to prosper.”

Apart from eco-resorts, which we all know are never really eco in the first place, and water features and lush landscaped spaces that are not necessarily ecologically-sensible in the desert, the project does have at least one green attribute: it will be designed as a pedestrian-friendly mixed-use development linked to both the red and green metro lines.

An eco-tram, light monorail, and water taxis will provide additional, sustainable transportation.

:: World Architecture News

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Solar Team Eindhoven from the Netherlands spent over a year developing their family car, which features photovoltaic solar panels on both the roof and rear, according to Dezeen. The latter are flipped up to optimize solar absorption and generate energy while the car is not in use.

Stella produces double the amount of energy that it needs to run, which allows the vehicle to contribute power to the national grid.

A biennial race across roughly 1,877 miles of Australian outback, the WCS has historically attracted solar-powered vehicles that aim for speed above all.

This year, however, in an effort to encourage a greater emphasis on practical vehicles that can be scaled up for commercial distribution, the competition organizers added the cruiser category.

While still held to the same standard as other categories, including energy efficiency, features, styling, and aesthetics, vehicles in this category had to demonstrate superior comfort and practicality as well.

And Stella performed better than the other 39 teams with an average speed of 42mph, a top speed of 75mph, and an average of three people on board throughout the journey from Darwin to Adelaide.

“I congratulate Team Eindhoven on their innovation, practical design and foresight, to think outside the square and add the extra seats,” said World Solar Challenge director Chris Selwood.

“‘Stella’ is a wonderful solar car in a field of exceptional cars and teams. I look forward to 2015 and the prospect of more cruisers as we work toward the world’s most efficient electric car.”

While this competition has formerly neglected every day pragmatism for exceedingly high-tech vehicles that the average family could never use, this year’s win signals a hopeful shift toward innovations that actually benefit humanity. That was the point, after all, when Denmark’s Hans Tholstrup first conceived the competition in the 1980s.

“The design of the car of the future has to meet the needs of modern consumers,” the team said when the car was unveiled earlier this year. “The car must be capable of transporting a family from the Netherlands to France in one day, it needs to be suitable for the daily commute to work, and it needs to achieve all this in comfort.”

Solar Team Eindhoven narrowly beat Japan’s Tokai University, which won the WSC in both 2009 and 2011, and it is also the only car that competed in this year’s challenge that actually has a license plate.

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