It is again time for the long summer vacations in Finland. Some companies are practically closed during the height of the summer season. But offices are often empty even during the busiest months.
There were 252 work days in Finland last year. If you reduce the number of a typical worker's paid leave, 25 days, you get 227 days. A worker spending 8 hours at work had 1816 hours office time. The office was theoretically available 24 hours in 365 days, which equals 8760 hours. In other words the office was empty almost 80 percent of the time.
We know that office rooms are not occupied all day. Just 50 to 60 % of office rooms in any office are used during the day. This means that somebody sits is an average office room in 11% of all the available hours of the year. A room needs heating, lighting and cooling. There are ways to control and limit the use of energy when the office is not used. It still makes you wonder how much energy is wasted for just having an office available.
Image: Aarni Heiskanen
