Cool Biz and Business Casual

While perhaps surprising to some proponents of formality at work, business fashion has changed over time quite remarkably. For example, in this Dutch painting from 1663 Governors Of The Wine Merchants Guild by Ferdinand Bol, important businessmen can be seen at work sporting long hair, beards, and more dramatically shorts and tights!

Nowadays shorts at work is considered a "career killer" even, confusingly, on casual Fridays according to Dana Casperson's Power Etiquette: What You Don't Know Can Kill Your Career 1999: 32. The distinction has led to a new oxymoron, 'Business Casual', being advocated by companies such as Deloitte. Yet, what is the cost of formality in terms of energy efficiency and travel work practices?

There are two major unintended consequences to business attire in the workplace. First, is the need for air-conditioning to support formal dress habits. Secondly, the emphasis on presentation and generally uncomfortable clothing - ties, high heels, and suits - leads to a preference for driving to work over cycling, walking, or even public transport.

Oddly it seems that climate has little to do with business attire. A recent poll Reuters 4 August 2010 has shown that chillier parts of Europe tend to dress less formally than India, Saudi Arabia, and Australia where full ties and suits for men are common even in temperatures over 30 degrees! It also seems that the more neo-liberal the country, the more inappropriate (or appropriate) the work attire: America and Great Britain both also see higher rates of formal dress.

To address these illogical practices Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi launched Cool Biz in 2005: a dressing down at work to match the climate rather than notions of cosmopolitanism. He took the extreme measure of setting government office air conditioners at 28C, thereby forcing changes in dress. Many companies in the private sector have refused to comply, despite the policy impacting on energy companies' profits by 175 million. Bloomburg 16 October 2005

Some workers have responded to the policy by stripping down to their underwear to cool down: research by Shinichi Tanabe, a professor of Architecture and Environmental Engineering at Tokyo’s Waseda University, claims that each degree the temperature is raised above 25 degrees cuts worker productivity by 1.9 percent. Bloomburg 23 July 2009 Perhaps businesses could do more than supply air conditioning to make their workers comfortable: recently, the Japanese Labour Standards Office confirmed that a young Chinese office worker, Jiang Xiao Dong at Fuji Electric Industries, was yet another victim of "karoshi" or death from overwork! New Zealand Herald August 14, 2010

As companies are increasingly forced to cost their carbon emissions the simple fix championed by Koizumi might have an incredible impact on how people not only dress for business but also how they commute.