13 ms·

> emissions from their commute Isn't stuff like this kind of out of their hand unless the state itself tries to fix this.

boogies 6y ago
No, they choose their location, and some tech companies provide transportation. Facebook is even building their own employee housing.
- ape4 6y ago
  Look at the Apple spaceship. It will require tons of employee driving.
- actuator 6y ago
  Companies do provide credits towards cycling and FB does this for even tube in London, but that will be still limited based on location. Though you are right about the location bit, they should force the hand of the state by speaking with their foot, I guess fear of losing talent opportunity scares them. > Facebook even builds their own employee housing. I wasn't aware about this, where are they building these?
  - boogies 6y ago
    Menlo Park, and apparently Google’s up to something similar in San Jose: https://levels.io/facebook-city/ https://levels.io/facebook-city/
    - iagovar 6y ago
      Isn't this the definitive cultural bubble? Jesus.
    - paconbork 6y ago
      Meh, if the tech workers lived in the city it would just be "gentrification". There's no winning.
shadowgovt 6y ago
Not really, for a couple reasons: 1) They have enough money to start initiatives, even geographically dispersed initiatives, independent from the state 2) They have a history of working hand-in-glove with the city of Seattle and the state of Washington; it can be hard to distinguish "What Microsoft is trying to do" from "What Washington state is trying to do" sometimes.
chrisseaton 6y ago
Google could provide electric vehicles from zero-carbon-emission sources, if they wanted to.
- na85 6y ago
  No such vehicle exists. All vehicles require carbon-intensive processes in their manufacturing.
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    Isn't that better than petrol or diesel cars?
    - Spivak 6y ago
      The short answer is yes, the long answer is "it depends on your local electricity generation but probably still yes." There are some places in the world where gas wins out because they burn coal to produce electricity but it's rare.
      - Qwertious 6y ago
        'There are some places in the world where gas wins out because they burn coal to produce electricity but it's rare.' This statement always throws me - did we just make a complete context-switch from talking about car emissions to talking about gas turbines? Or is "gas" being used to refer to petrol ("gasoline")? The subject of the previous post was clearly cars, but that sentence is talking about gas and coal, better re-read the entire statement several times to double-check the context! I don't want to be rude and shit on peoples' language, but FFS I hate the shortening slang-version of "gasoline" so much. THAT WORD IS TAKEN, IT MEANS VAPOUR.
        Spivak 6y ago
        It might be a US-ism? I've never heard anyone in casual conversion call it gasoline or petrol. You would get weird looks if you called it gasoline. "You fill up your gas tank at the gas station and get a gas can just in case you get low on gas before you can hit the next station to gas up."
dkarl 6y ago
Companies can help a lot by locating their offices in places that enable less carbon intensive commuting, lobbying local government, supporting initiatives that promote density, and supporting local transit initiatives (example: [0]). When businesses speak up and say, local business needs workers to be able to commute without a car, our competitiveness will suffer without it and we will fall behind, that speaks to a large number of voters who don't respond to environmental appeals. [0] https://www.kxan.com/news/downtown-austin-business-leaders-say-project-connect-is-a-critical-need/ https://www.kxan.com/news/downtown-austin-business-leaders-s...
- globular-toast 6y ago
  Or allowing work from home.
  - bluGill 6y ago
    Work from home is useful, but there are real advantages to face to face conversation.
    - Qwertious 6y ago
      On the other hand, if people work from home then more people will focus on improving the "work-from-home experience" and making the business more suited for working from home.
- syshum 6y ago
  >>supporting initiatives that promote density This is not going to help you with "speaks to a large number of voters who don't respond to environmental appeals" There is a MASSIVE over lab in people that do don't respond to (government regulation based) environmental appeals AND have no desire to live in densely populated cities. Speaking as one of those people, the idea of living in an area of high population density is a non-starter for me, my current area is about 2,000 people per square mile that that is FAR FAR too dense for me. living in Seattle or LA with a Population density of 4x time is something nightmares are made of, and NYC at about 13x that is just a total night terror....
nend 6y ago
Why would an employees commute be out of the hands of the employer? Companies already provide incentives to help employees with commutes: public transit benefits, wfh days, shuttle services. It seems especially obvious at the moment that companies could simply eliminate tens (or even hundreds) of thousands of commutes instantly by letting the vast majority of their employees wfh permanently (or much more frequently at least). Additionally it'd probably be pretty easy to brainstorm a dozen more less common ideas/incentives companies could start trialing: pay people to take public transit instead of just subsidizing partial costs, have more satellite offices or pay for wework type space, a welcome packet that includes an option for a bicycle and fitness trainer, additional shuttle services, long term plans such as working with the government to invest in bicycle/public transit infrastructure, etc etc
- Spivak 6y ago
  Because I can just not use those services and take my car to work? Like large employers can dangle some pretty substantive carrots but I don't think courts would let them get away with any sticks.
  - nend 6y ago
    >Like large employers can dangle some pretty substantive carrots but I don't think courts would let them get away with any sticks. The courts already let them get away with it. There's nothing illegal about discriminating against people based on their commutes. The employer can do anything they want, up to and including termination (or refusal to hire someone in the first place). Commute discrimination already happens, here's one article detailing research on the topic: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-30/inner-city-job-applicants-have-an-advantage-in-d-c https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-30/inner-cit... Here's another article about it: https://www.boston.com/news/jobs/2018/03/26/no-offer-because-of-lengthy-commute https://www.boston.com/news/jobs/2018/03/26/no-offer-because...
ashtonkem 6y ago
The FAANG companies are so rich and so big that they’re now providing some of the commuting infrastructure for their employees in the form of buses. They certainly have quite a lot more control over their employees commuting impact than most companies, even if it isn’t total control.
ohthehugemanate 6y ago
Well, the model is not designed as a target for companies. It's designed as a way to categorize indirect emissions. It's 100% Microsoft's decision to take the broadest possible definition of their carbon footprint to target.
tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
Where a public transit alternative exists, employers can often create strong incentives by limiting or charging for parking and/or subsidizing public transit.

boogies 6y ago

No, they choose their location, and some tech companies provide transportation. Facebook is even building their own employee housing.

ape4 6y ago
Look at the Apple spaceship. It will require tons of employee driving.
actuator 6y ago
Companies do provide credits towards cycling and FB does this for even tube in London, but that will be still limited based on location. Though you are right about the location bit, they should force the hand of the state by speaking with their foot, I guess fear of losing talent opportunity scares them. > Facebook even builds their own employee housing. I wasn't aware about this, where are they building these?
- boogies 6y ago
  Menlo Park, and apparently Google’s up to something similar in San Jose: https://levels.io/facebook-city/ https://levels.io/facebook-city/
  - iagovar 6y ago
    Isn't this the definitive cultural bubble? Jesus.
  - paconbork 6y ago
    Meh, if the tech workers lived in the city it would just be "gentrification". There's no winning.

shadowgovt 6y ago

Not really, for a couple reasons: 1) They have enough money to start initiatives, even geographically dispersed initiatives, independent from the state 2) They have a history of working hand-in-glove with the city of Seattle and the state of Washington; it can be hard to distinguish "What Microsoft is trying to do" from "What Washington state is trying to do" sometimes.

chrisseaton 6y ago

Google could provide electric vehicles from zero-carbon-emission sources, if they wanted to.

na85 6y ago
No such vehicle exists. All vehicles require carbon-intensive processes in their manufacturing.
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  Isn't that better than petrol or diesel cars?
  - Spivak 6y ago
    The short answer is yes, the long answer is "it depends on your local electricity generation but probably still yes." There are some places in the world where gas wins out because they burn coal to produce electricity but it's rare.
    - Qwertious 6y ago
      'There are some places in the world where gas wins out because they burn coal to produce electricity but it's rare.' This statement always throws me - did we just make a complete context-switch from talking about car emissions to talking about gas turbines? Or is "gas" being used to refer to petrol ("gasoline")? The subject of the previous post was clearly cars, but that sentence is talking about gas and coal, better re-read the entire statement several times to double-check the context! I don't want to be rude and shit on peoples' language, but FFS I hate the shortening slang-version of "gasoline" so much. THAT WORD IS TAKEN, IT MEANS VAPOUR.
      - Spivak 6y ago
        It might be a US-ism? I've never heard anyone in casual conversion call it gasoline or petrol. You would get weird looks if you called it gasoline. "You fill up your gas tank at the gas station and get a gas can just in case you get low on gas before you can hit the next station to gas up."

dkarl 6y ago

Companies can help a lot by locating their offices in places that enable less carbon intensive commuting, lobbying local government, supporting initiatives that promote density, and supporting local transit initiatives (example: [0]). When businesses speak up and say, local business needs workers to be able to commute without a car, our competitiveness will suffer without it and we will fall behind, that speaks to a large number of voters who don't respond to environmental appeals. [0] https://www.kxan.com/news/downtown-austin-business-leaders-say-project-connect-is-a-critical-need/ https://www.kxan.com/news/downtown-austin-business-leaders-s...

globular-toast 6y ago
Or allowing work from home.
- bluGill 6y ago
  Work from home is useful, but there are real advantages to face to face conversation.
  - Qwertious 6y ago
    On the other hand, if people work from home then more people will focus on improving the "work-from-home experience" and making the business more suited for working from home.
syshum 6y ago
>>supporting initiatives that promote density This is not going to help you with "speaks to a large number of voters who don't respond to environmental appeals" There is a MASSIVE over lab in people that do don't respond to (government regulation based) environmental appeals AND have no desire to live in densely populated cities. Speaking as one of those people, the idea of living in an area of high population density is a non-starter for me, my current area is about 2,000 people per square mile that that is FAR FAR too dense for me. living in Seattle or LA with a Population density of 4x time is something nightmares are made of, and NYC at about 13x that is just a total night terror....

nend 6y ago

Why would an employees commute be out of the hands of the employer? Companies already provide incentives to help employees with commutes: public transit benefits, wfh days, shuttle services. It seems especially obvious at the moment that companies could simply eliminate tens (or even hundreds) of thousands of commutes instantly by letting the vast majority of their employees wfh permanently (or much more frequently at least). Additionally it'd probably be pretty easy to brainstorm a dozen more less common ideas/incentives companies could start trialing: pay people to take public transit instead of just subsidizing partial costs, have more satellite offices or pay for wework type space, a welcome packet that includes an option for a bicycle and fitness trainer, additional shuttle services, long term plans such as working with the government to invest in bicycle/public transit infrastructure, etc etc

Spivak 6y ago
Because I can just not use those services and take my car to work? Like large employers can dangle some pretty substantive carrots but I don't think courts would let them get away with any sticks.
- nend 6y ago
  >Like large employers can dangle some pretty substantive carrots but I don't think courts would let them get away with any sticks. The courts already let them get away with it. There's nothing illegal about discriminating against people based on their commutes. The employer can do anything they want, up to and including termination (or refusal to hire someone in the first place). Commute discrimination already happens, here's one article detailing research on the topic: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-30/inner-city-job-applicants-have-an-advantage-in-d-c https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-30/inner-cit... Here's another article about it: https://www.boston.com/news/jobs/2018/03/26/no-offer-because-of-lengthy-commute https://www.boston.com/news/jobs/2018/03/26/no-offer-because...

ashtonkem 6y ago

The FAANG companies are so rich and so big that they’re now providing some of the commuting infrastructure for their employees in the form of buses. They certainly have quite a lot more control over their employees commuting impact than most companies, even if it isn’t total control.

ohthehugemanate 6y ago

Well, the model is not designed as a target for companies. It's designed as a way to categorize indirect emissions. It's 100% Microsoft's decision to take the broadest possible definition of their carbon footprint to target.

tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago

Where a public transit alternative exists, employers can often create strong incentives by limiting or charging for parking and/or subsidizing public transit.