June 5th is World Environment Day, and whilst this year’s theme focuses on celebrating biodiversity, it’s an excellent chance to highlight the environmental challenges faced by all sectors.

In business, effects on the environment brought on by everyday operations, as well as actions of employees, is significant enough that reducing it has become a business in itself. Countless green initiatives are introduced around the world, in order to negate the damaging effects of our essential business ecosystems on the even more essential ecosystems that mother nature blessed us with.

During the pandemic lock-down, there have been global reports of natural habitats becoming reinvigorated by the lower levels of pollution, human traffic and noise. As we were stuck at home we saw an abundance of animals and plant-life thriving, carefree and able to roam environments that had been for a long time inaccessible, undesirable or unsafe.

What’s more, with global warming at the forefront of environmental initiatives in the last decade, reports of the ozone layer repairing itself came as a very welcome highlight during the chaos. This has more to do with a strong polar vortex than air quality changes due to lock-downs. However, countries around the world that deal with high levels of pollution on a daily basis were able to experience the benefits of cleaner air and reduced levels of pollution.

The Environmental Impact of Remote Working

Every day we’re faced with choices that can lead to our positive or negative contribution to the conservation of the environment. Recent events have provided us with the ideal backdrop for 2020’s World Environment Day, especially in regards to remote working and business operations. So with more and more companies realizing the benefits of working from home, what impact does it have on the environment?

  1. Less greenhouse gas emissions
    With no need for travel to and from work and less energy consumption in the office, a business can significantly reduce its carbon footprint. In fact, it’s estimated that greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced by 54 million tons every year by remote workers.
  2. Reduction in the use of fossil fuels
    In allowing employees to work from home, they’ll be using much less gas on average, cutting down on our need as a society for rampant usage of fossil fuels. In the U.S. alone, 389.68 million gallons of gasoline is consumed every single day.
  3. Less energy consumption
    No lights, no heating or cooling, no computers, no coffee machines, no printers, no microwaves, no communications devices, no elevators. Without the need for a physical office space, businesses can significantly reduce their energy use (and also save money)! Energy used for cooling alone accounts for 11% of the total consumption, an astounding 154billion kWh.
  4. Reduce waste
    At home, if we’re not careful, we can produce much more waste than we ever thought possible. Now imagine how much an office can generate: that’s approximately 4.4 pounds for the average worker every day! The chances are that employees working from home are much more conscious about their choices, and may have more options in regards to reusable products.
  5. Less impact on transportation infrastructure
    Probably something we all take for granted, every journey we make, every car ride we take all puts an amount of pressure on the infrastructure that supports us to do so. If less of us have to make that journey to the office, less money can be spent on maintaining roads, bridges, railways and so on, and can be allocated elsewhere on projects that may be otherwise underfunded.
  6. Less demand for office spaces and car parks
    Are you tired of seeing historical city buildings or green areas being ripped apart to make way for fancy new office buildings and concrete parking structures? Well remote working eliminates the need for this, and while architects and property developers may not be too happy about it, the environment will be.
  7. Reduced consumption of consumer goods
    We all vow to do better, be healthier, make more environmentally sound choices and of course, be friendlier to our wallets. But when temptation arises it can be hard to say no. Working from home allows us to eat, drink and snack as we like without the need to reach for badly packaged items or order delivery.
  8. More environmentally conscious
    One of the benefits of remote working is flexibility and flexibility allows us to use our time more wisely. With more time on our hands, it’s much easier to make environmentally conscious decisions such as choosing reusable containers instead of reaching for a quick fix in a plastic bottle.

Check out our infographic for World Environment Day on the impact of remote working and how we can do better in the office!

Environmental impact of remote working world environment day infographic