Report: Telecommuting good for the environment

Telecommuting with the help of managed cloud services was recently recognized by InformationWeek as one of 15 green technology innovations that had a significant impact during 2010.

According to the InformationWeek report, once only a small percentage of jobs allowed employees to work from home. With the increased adoption of cloud services, however, telecommuting is becoming a possibility for a growing number of workers.

Telecommuters utilize cloud services to access their corporate applications and data from home, using their own hardware and internet connection. They may also use cloud-based communications services to communicate with coworkers in their office and elsewhere.

The increased number of employees working at home helps reduce commuter traffic, thus decreasing carbon emissions, according to the report.

In some cases, telecommuting may also reduce companies' hardware infrastructure. If a large number of employees regularly work from home using their own equipment, there may be less need for duplication of hardware - one computer at work, one at home.

The environmental benefits of cloud services are increasingly motivating more businesses to adopt the technology. A recent study commissioned by Microsoft found large businesses can reduce emissions by as much as 30 percent by moving infrastructure to the cloud.