How three-day weekends can help save the world (and us too)

Almost everyone enjoys a bank holiday. A three-day weekend means more time to spend with family and friends, to go out and explore the world, and to relax from the pressures of working life. Imagine if, rather than a few times a year, we had a three-day weekend every week. This isn’t just a nice idea. Beyond the possibilities for leisure, three-day weekends might also be one of the easiest steps we could take to radically reduce our environmental impact – and future-proof our economy.

A reduction in working hours generally correlates with marked reductions in energy consumption, as economists David Rosnick and Mark Weisbrot have argued. In fact, if Americans simply followed European levels of working hours, for example, they would see an estimated 20% reduction in energy use – and hence in carbon emissions.

With a four-day week, huge amounts of commuting to and from work could be avoided, as well as the energy outputs from running workplaces. At a point when we need to massively cut back our carbon outputs, instituting a three-day weekend could be the simplest and most elegant way to make our economy more environmentally friendly.

Read the piece on The Conversation by a visiting lecturer in Sociology at The City, University of London, Alex Williams - “How three-day weekends can help save the world (and us too).”

 

Also, check out The Four Hour Work Day.