C
OVID-19 has caused an upheaval in the way of working for companies across the world. Most organisations have tried to find workarounds to sustain and have initiated remote working programs.
Remote work, also known as Telecommuting, is the only sustainable solution going forward. Organisations are benefitting from saved resources, improved productivity with flexible-timings, and reduced employee turnover. It is being accepted as the new normal.
It is undoubtedly a win-win situation for the employees and employers, but let’s not forget about the positive impact it will have on the environment too. Being conscious of environmental factors is helping everyone alike. People are making healthy choices, which ultimately helps individuals, organisations, and the planet.
Let’s look at the most significant positive environmental impacts of remote work:
1. Reduced greenhouse gas emissions
Work from home avoids the commute to work, which saves not only time but also transportation cost. Lesser commuters eventually result in lower greenhouse gas emissions. If all employees start working from home for even half of the week, the gas emissions will reduce drastically.
Greenhouse gases make the planet warmer. The release of such gases is caused by various human activities, burning of fossil fuel being the most prominent. The amount of gasoline burnt by vehicle engines creates hazardous pollution.
The transportation-related emissions are produced by cars, vans, employee minibuses, light-duty trucks, and SUVs that burn fossil fuel.
2. Clean air
Reduced gas emissions mean clean and healthy air. The megacities are crowded with vehicles. As pollution rises, people are struggling to breathe fresh air, causing and aggravating respiratory diseases, such as asthma or lung infections.
You would be astonished to note that air pollution causes more death compared to influenza, HIV, TB, etc. The highway vehicles alone contribute to one –third of the total nitrogen dioxide in the air.
Remote work will allow the vehicles to stay off the road, making the environment clean and green.
3. Save paper
While in office, we tend to take a lot more printouts than required. Some documents can be read online, in the soft copy, but in the office, there is a tendency to print it out. At home, we are more thoughtful about economics. Also, with great virtual platforms available in the market, remote working is becoming convenient for running seamless virtual meetings, events and webinars.
When working remotely, we share files online, through mails, google drive or attachments. If you check the annual consumption of paper, you would be surprised to note that remote working can eliminate the use of 247 trillion sheets of paper.
4. Less use of plastic
Do you also have the habit of grabbing a cuppa coffee on the way to work, picking up breakfast, or buying a packed lunch? When you commute to work, you tend to buy these almost every day of the workweek. All the bottles, plastic utensils, food packaging etc. add up to significantly increase the total amount of plastic used.
Work from home professionals tends to adopt reusable supplies, seriously reducing the contribution to the plastic problem.
Remote work is the only sustainable solution that can benefit the environment by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and lowering energy consumption, benefitting all, the employee, the employer and the environment.
Remote work is the only sustainable solution that can benefit the environment by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and lowering energy consumption, benefitting all, the employee, the employer and the environment.
5. Reduced impact on infrastructure
Fewer vehicles on roads, no traffic jams, reduction in emissions from petrol-powered engines require lesser upkeep of infrastructure. On similar lines, large offices consume a massive amount of energy. Remote working will reduce these as there will be fewer rooms to cool and light up, fewer seats to be heated with fewer employees in offices.
In highly crowded areas, the transportation infrastructure falls short of the increasing demand for commuting vehicles. Those traffic jams during peak hours, the slow pace of vehicles results in even more gasoline consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Higher traffic damages the highways and streets, creating more demand for repairs and expansions.
While in office, people are less environmentally conscious about switching off lights, air conditioning and computers. Examples of companies that work only remotely and are thriving include Airmeet, Automattic, Tumblr, WooCommerce.
6. The inclination to shift from metros to rural areas
The key reason for residing in big cities is more lucrative career opportunities. For this, individuals have to pay high rents and deal with higher living costs.
With an option of WFH, people can shift away from densely populated areas to more peaceful suburban areas where they probably have the support of family. This way, small towns will also have a more creative workforce, young minds, and more chances for development.
Parallelly, large cities will have more places to breathe, an opportunity to become greener and less polluted with lesser waste. Urbanisation is the reason for 5% of all greenhouse emissions, due to deforestation. Such decentralisation of people improves the quality of life for everyone.
7. Reduced Food Waste
One of the main benefits of working from home that we’ve seen is a significant reduction in food waste in the office. As companies adopt flexible or fully remote work policies, fewer employees are dining in a traditional office environment, minimizing food waste.
When people come to the office to work, they usually bring the tiffin or eat in a company caterer. Workers who bring a lunch box are more likely to finish the meal without wasting it. Even those who order from the office canteen are likely to finish it. But when a large quantity of food is prepared in the company’s cafeteria, the possibility of it being wasted is high.
In an office setting, employees tend to buy food on impulse from nearby restaurants or cafes, often leading to over-ordering and wasted food. With remote work, employees can better plan their meals, reducing the likelihood of remaining food.
8. Lower Water Usage
Remote work significantly reduces water consumption in the office for things like restroom, drinking, kitchen area, cleaning, and so on. In the workplace, companies often use water-intensive cooling systems (eg, air conditioning). If a large number of employees work from home, it won’t be used as much, which reduces water consumption by many folds.
If there are fewer people in the workplace, office kitchens use less water for things like making coffee, washing dishes, operating kitchen appliances (for example, dishwashers), and more.
What are the potential environmental drawbacks of remote work?
Remote work has actually been widely recognized for its potential environmental benefits, such as less travel and less greenhouse gas emissions and more. However, there are also significant environmental downsides associated with this work model. So let’s see what they are
- Increased Energy Consumption: Due to working remotely, employees won’t only use the laptop but also light, colling stuff, and powering devices which can lead to higher energy consumption in homes. This can put stress on local power lines and make greenhouse gas emissions worse.
Every electronic device, including laptops, tablets, and smartphones, requires electricity to function. So, in such a case, if all organizations’ employees begin working from home, the electricity demand would increase significantly, leading to a significant environmental impact.
- Digital Overload and Carbon Footprint: Remote work often leads to employees spending more time on digital devices, which can increase the demand to host video conferences or use the internet more frequently. This can lead to a greater use of energy to keep WiFi routers and digital devices running, which could leave a larger carbon footprint.
Online meetings and conferences need a substantial amount of bandwidth and server resources, adding to the overall digital strain. Remote workers using cloud-based applications naturally increase server load and home energy consumption.
- Increased E-Waste: When employees work from home, they use their electronic gadgets more often, raising the rate of e-waste generation. Due to rapid technological advancement, the lifespan of products has decreased. The longer people use them, the more likely they are to be repaired or replaced.
According to Statista report, 62 million metric tons generated worldwide in 2022, and e-waste generation is projected to exceed 80 million metric tons by 2030.
For example, a remote worker uses a laptop to perform their regular work, attend meetings, share documents, communicate, and more. Over time, he may find their device is not performing optimally due to software updates or hardware limitations.
In such a case, he might think of purchasing a new laptop or computer to improve productivity. This results in old laptops being thrown away, generating e-waste. If every remote employee began doing this, a massive amount of e-waste would be generated each year.
Key takeaway
While people have to work remotely right now due to coronavirus pandemic, unexpected positives are bound to happen to the environment. The silver lining here is the positive environmental impact that remote work is bringing about.
FAQs
To make sure that remote work is ecologically sustainable, companies can
- Develop policies that encourage energy efficiency and waste reduction.
- Provide employees with resources and training on sustainable work practices.
- Invest in technology that enables remote work and reduces environmental effects.
- Educate employees on the environmental benefits of remote work
- Use digital tools and processes to reduce paper usage.
In order to encourage remote work, the government should establish clear rules and regulations for distant work, offer tax benefits for businesses adopting remote work policies, emphasize the importance of work-life balance and flexibility, and collaborate with tech firms to provide companies latest remote work technologies to encourage home-based work.
Long-term environmental benefits of remote work include lower demand for paper, less carbon emissions from everyday travel, less energy use in office buildings, and less e-waste creation. This will greatly reduce urban traffic and might also help to lower air pollution, therefore promoting a more ecologically friendly way of life.
