With the spike in oil prices earlier this year, many businesses opened up increased opportunities to work from home for their cash-strapped employees.  As fuel prices continued to increase, the measures proved even more successful than anticipated, saving employees money and time spent commuting, although the biggest benefits of reduced office time turned out to be environmental.

Now, even with oil prices falling in the face of a worldwide economic decline, the benefits of the home office environment have many wondering, can the traditional workplace be saved?

Once thought of as a necessity for a productive workforce, modern communications tools have all but rendered the traditional full-time office an expensive vestige of the past. Video conferencing, email, voice-over-IP, instant messaging and a bevy of other technologies that have entered the office in the past decade allow real-time, face-to-face interactions from any location.

While the business power of a live-flesh handshake during negotiations still carries weight, the need for workers to all be present in the office most days is evaporating.

This is especially true in light of the environmental benefits of letting workers toil from home through virtual office applications.

The expense of lighting, heating or cooling a central office, can be eliminated on some days with proper building management, as well as the fossil fuels normally burned delivering employees. Shared office space and flexible working hours also also the cost per square foot of human capital to go down.

Gridlock, which strikes countries regardless of economic status, furthers the damage caused by auto emissions, and like so many other problems associated with traditional offices, creates a massive economic sink as well. 

For those companies that are scaling back or eliminating work hubs, companies can resell or recycle your unneeded furniture and other office equipment.  British moving company Robinson's, which specializes in moving for the business sector, has initiated a new program called Di-Vert, aiming to ensure that equipment that has become unnecessary —including old office furniture—ends up in landfills.  With discarded furniture from offices alone taking up 500,000 tons in UK landfills alone, improving current moving systems could make a serious dent in office-related consumption.

At the other end of the product cycle, American company Citron is working to set up and supply the most efficient, environmentally friendly office environments possible.  Aside from sales of sustainable office furniture, Citron also offer services to plan out of your office to make the best possible use of space, natural light. And like Robinson's, it has a program in place to collect and recycle old furniture.

So is the conventional central office still doomed? I've got to say I doubt it. With services like those provided by Robinson's and Citron, employers will be able to make considerable reductions in the amount of energy consumed and waste produced in their central office spaces. While it's almost impossible for offices to meet the environmental efficiencies of working from home hour for hour,  moderate increases in efficiency could equalize the overall impact.