So, it appears that the company I work for, which is otherwise a fairly sane and sensible collection of folks, has decided to "go green". Now, don’t get me wrong. I think we should all have some sense of stewardship for the planet, some sense of ecological responsibility.

I must confess though, this news from my company has me scratching my head.

HR drug a box through the corridors today, and dropped off a present to all the full-time employees.  A water bottle.

The idea here is that we will no longer offer bottled water in our vending machines, and we won’t be putting out plastic cups for people to use at our oft-broken, self-purifying water fountains.

Instead, people will now be saving the planet one water bottle at a time.

The kicker is, we’re still going to sell bottled water by the case to our customers. We’re not doing anything about the hundred or so cars that drive in every day. We’re not going to do anything about requiring business casual attire (which means dry cleaning). We still haven’t put in the bike rack. We still don’t do anything to encourage carpooling.

No, we’re going to spend money on water bottles. It’s a token gesture, barely. It’s almost offensive.

Seriously, check this out…

That’s just a small sampling of the parking at ONE of our HQ facility buildings.

If we allowed even 10% of these people (of the 30-50% of our HQ staff who are able and ready to work from home) to work from home 2 days a week, the positive impact to the environment would be something truly worth crowing about, and the benefits to morale would be priceless.

Instead, as so often happens, we embrace the idea of the winds of change without actually embracing the change. We stick with what has always been the norm, because it’s easier, or gives the impression that somehow it makes us more effective and professional (rather than understanding that true professionalism happens no matter what you’re wearing, or where you’re working from).

What a pity.

Update: We started a carpooling initiative, which is a very good start. We even have a few parking spaces marked for carpool only. Given that my cube neighbor still hangs his bike in his cube, I’m guessing we haven’t gotten around to the bike rack.