The Riot for Austerity target numbers don’t differentiate between people who work from a home office, and those whose workplace is outside the home.
(For those of you who may be newcomers to this blog, the Riot for Austerity — also known as the 90 Percent Reduction Challenge — is the grassroots eco-footprint-reduction movement that sparked this blog, and my book DEEP GREEN. You can learn more about it in my book, in this blog, and via the online community linked in the sidebar.)
Anyway, back to what I was saying. The Riot for Austerity target numbers don’t differentiate between people who work from home and those who work outside the home. Therefore, if you have a home office, and work there most of the day, you might find (for example) that it’s a bit more of a challenge to meet the targets for electricity usage, home heating, and other house-based metrics than it would be if you worked in some outside place where you would not have to count your consumption.
Accordingly, this morning it occurred to me to propose a “Home Office Bonus” (analogous to the IRS’s Home Office Deduction, but related to eco footprint rather than financial expenditure).
I don’t have any numeric values for this “bonus,” but let’s just say you get an extra gold star for making the targets if your consumption also includes a home office. And regardless, if you’re reading this, give yourself an extra gold star today just for caring about your eco footprint.