Work where you live
The newly founded VillageOffice cooperative wants to get to the root of the commuting problem: In the future, people should be able to work where they live. To this end, the cooperative is creating a nationwide network of VillageOffices: shared workspaces in the center of villages, small towns and suburbs.
The daily stream of commuters stems from a pattern from the Industrial Revolution, when people first had to travel to work where the machines were: to the factory. Today, we still commute to these "factories," even though nearly half of all workers could do their jobs from anywhere. We can no longer afford this automatism. Commuting to the office every day for no compelling reason is like buying strawberries flown in in February: an ecological and economic nonsense. The Mobility Pricing concept report presented by Federal Councillor Leuthard therefore proposes the increased use of home offices. But anyone who already uses home office knows that this brings its own problems: the mixing of private and work life, distractions, inadequate infrastructure and dwindling social contacts.
Commute no longer than 15 minutes
The VillageOffice cooperative aims to bring work back to where we live. This not only reduces CO2 emissions and eases the burden on infrastructures, but also strengthens local communities and enables flexible workplace models that increase employee satisfaction and employer attractiveness. The new approach is accordingly: a professional, shared work environment that can be reached within 15 minutes from home. A place where people can work and network without first commuting halfway across Switzerland.
Active contribution to the 2030 Agenda
This change takes time and an ecosystem that connects all the necessary stakeholders. It is therefore the goal of the VillageOffice cooperative to create this ecosystem. As a partner project of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the initiators have committed themselves to making an active contribution to the 2030 Agenda with this approach. The cooperative is presided over by David Brühlmeier. "I commuted from Fribourg to Zurich for nine years and was very annoyed by the loss of time. My solution back then? We need faster trains!" he recalls of his own commuting experience. Over time, he says, he then realized that as a society we need to ask ourselves whether commuting makes sense at all. "With over 2.4 million people able to work regardless of location, the answer is clearly no," he states clearly today. "We are currently experiencing an upheaval like the last time we saw it with the industrial revolution. I would like to make my contribution to shaping this new society in a positive way. This requires new forms of work and new organizations. We are implementing both with VillageOffice."
