| 英文摘要: | Ecol. Econ. 132, 124–134 (2017) One way to control greenhouse gas emissions is to moderate the energy usage of factories and offices. A potentially simple way to do that is by reducing the number of working hours. To investigate the efficacy of this strategy, Lewis King and Jeroen van den Bergh from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain, compare five scenarios that estimate the effect of a 20% reduction in working hours for full-time employees in the UK on greenhouse gas emissions. Two strategies emerge as the most efficient: a four-day workweek and a reduction in the number of employees working at the same time, both of which decrease energy consumption in the workplace. The results of these policies (for example, more leisure time and lower incomes) would change the greenhouse gas emission patterns and while these effects might partially cancel each other out (for example, people would consume less energy at work but more at home), the outcome is expected to be a net reduction of emissions. Interestingly, people have quite recently adapted to similar changes in working hours, for example in France in 1998. |