Shifting to a four-day, 32-hour working week with no loss of pay would shrink the UK’s carbon footprint by 127 million tonnes per year. This represents a reduction of 21.3% - more than the entire carbon footprint of Switzerland and equivalent to taking 27 million cars off the road (effectively the entire UK private car fleet).

A reduction in working hours has been found to correlate with significant reductions in energy consumption and carbon-intensive commuting, and enabling people to draw more value from ‘low-carbon’ activities such as rest, exercising or engaging with their community.

Some countries and companies get it - Scotland and Spain are trialing a four-day week and global organisations such as Unilever and Buffer have already made the switch.  As the UK prepares to host key global climate talks this year, Boris Johnson said that we would “lead the way” in fighting climate change. But for all its talk of a Green Recovery, the UK government hasn’t even considered a shorter working week as a means of fixing the climate and unemployment crisis.

Instead of returning to ‘business as usual' at work, together with its environmental and human costs, we are calling on the government to support a shift to a four-day week to quickly and significantly reduce the UK’s carbon footprint and lead the way at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) hosted in Glasgow this November.