Elance Blog

For Earth Day, we tried to estimate the kind of impact that Elancers are having on the environment.



Every week, small businesses farm out thousands of marketing, technology and administrative jobs to 50,000 members of the Elance professional network, and they are also doing something good for the environment.

Based on our rough estimate, by not meeting in person or commuting to work via automobile or bus, Elancers could be avoiding more than 250 million pounds of CO₂ emissions annually.

Of course, we had to make assumptions to calculate this impact, such as considering the distribution of Elance providers globally and the ratio of individuals vs. businesses, but given our assumptions and a few key data points, here’s how the data adds up:

54,000 active individual Elance providers
X 20 mile average round trip daily commute^₁
/ 20 miles per gallon of gasoline average^₂
X 19.4 pounds of CO₂ emissions per gallon of gasoline^₃
X 240 average working days per year
= 251 million pounds of CO₂ emissions saved annually

How did your need for transportation change when you started using Elance as a buyer or service provider?

Sources:
1. Bureau of Transportation Statistics, 2000 report
2. U.S. EPA Fuel Economy Trends, 2007
3. U.S. EPA Emission Facts, 2005