Office automation: Assessing energy implications

The authors estimate the net-energy intensity of manual and automated offices. Subjective probability distributions have been used to characterize the considerable uncertainty about the value of a number of the coefficients that are required in such calculations. The current generation of automated offices appears to be more energy-intensive than conventional offices. The energy savings made possible by substituting electronic mail for conventional mail is small compared with this difference. The net impact of substitution for travel will, over the next decade, probably represent less than a few percent of the total energy used in all commuting and other business-related travel and could be either positive or negative.