No Commute
Perhaps the most obvious reason why telecommuting has a positive impact on the environment is that there is no commute. This reduces the carbon footprint of the worker significantly as they are not using any fuel – either in their own car or on public transport – to get to an office to work. Since they are working from home, all they need to do is walk to the room that they use as an office. In some cases, they will need to attend a meeting, for example, but this won’t happen every day, so even when it does, it is a negligible impact.
Of course, some companies require employees to take flights in order to make meetings, but in many cases, this can be done from home over Skype or similar video calling programs. If a face to face meeting is still necessary, this one-off journey can still be offset by the fact that there is no general commute to be done.
Less Waste
There are many large costs associated with running a business, and waste is one of them. In an office with a number of people, the amount of trash that is produced and that needs to be taken to landfill is large. It’s not just the amount of trash that is a problem either; often businesses will engage firms to come specifically to collect it, and that is another way that the environment is impacted – extra journeys in large trucks can cause problems.
When people work from home, they will produce less trash, to begin with, because it will be just one person, plus their trash will be collected in the usual way, with no additional journeys necessary. If you want to ensure that this happens, you can even bring in a no paper policy, so that nothing is printed unnecessarily. You can then install the right software for your company, such as Ebassi for the oil and gas industry, or a cloud-based program for online store owners as this will help this to happen as everything can be done online. You can learn more here.
Energy Costs
When you work or run an office, the energy costs are going to be high. You’ll need to have it heated or cooled sufficiently to ensure that everyone is comfortable and that all your health and safety responsibilities are covered. This can be expensive. When working from home, employees have more control over their own energy costs – they can look around for better deals, or they can choose how hot or cold they want their home to be when they are working there. This will save money for the company, and also possibly for the employee, but it will also have a greater impact on the environment as energy consumption will be decreased.
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