Environmental work profiles—A Visionary Life Cycle Analysis of a week at the office

Abstract This study aims to set up a method to analyse the variable office work profiles of jobs such as bankers, managers, specialists, researchers, etc. A worker's profile has to be assessed from the perspective of balanced sustainability including environmental, economic and social aspects. This paper starts with a presentation of a visionary methodology by which the environmental performance of present work profiles (taken from research reports and policy strategies by Finnish ministries) is assessed. Due to this all the work profiles presented in this paper are preliminary and only serve the purpose of illustrating the methodology. In a second step an extensive survey will be carried out in larger companies to create more detailed and empirical work profiles. At the same time, further effort has to be put into analysing alternative future work profiles and possibly to include economic and social aspects. In order to determine the environmental impact of office work, two normally independent methods are combined in this paper. A futures table is used to describe a number of alternative work profiles. This table matrix serves also as the basis to establish future scenarios of probable and possible working weeks. Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) is the tool used for figuring out the energy and material performance according to the modelled work profiles. When used together, the two methods comprise – as we call it with respect to future-oriented work scenarios – a Visionary Life Cycle Analysis (VLCA) of Office Work. The immediate results of this methodology demonstrate which working profiles are ecologically more sustainable than others. Weaknesses in behaviour patterns are detected and space for improvement is localised. In short: this methodology enables a company or single worker to analyse present work profiles and patterns and to create new visionary and sustainable work patterns. The final goal could be to provide a tool to document anybody's work profile and to show how – by changing certain habits – the individual's (environmental) performance could be improved.