With the current situation of the COVID-19 many companies have been forced nowadays to establish ‘home-office’ as their usual way of working. And it has become clear that home-office has had a positive impact on the environment, mainly thanks to the elimination or reduction in the use of transport. In Europe, transport accounts for nearly 25% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and in the United States for 28%. Reducing the use of transport results in the reduction of tons of CO2 that are emitted into the atmosphere.
In Switzerland, according to Daniela Friedli of Umweltarena, if, after the Coronavirus, 450,000 people still spent a working day in home-office mode, this would reduce traffic by 1.3 billion kilometres a year, which would represent a reduction of 100,000 tonnes of CO2 a year.*
This is why, for the sake of the environment, it would be advisable to maintain this trend of working ‘from home’ even after the COVID-19 crisis has passed. On the other hand, if we want to increase the positive impact on the environment by working from home, we can follow this advice:
- Control the temperature in your workplace. Don’t overuse the air conditioning or heating.
- Avoid using paper to print documents. You can use some applications that allow you to print and sign in digital format.
- Hold virtual conferences instead of face-to-face ones.
- Cook your own meals at home for the whole family and avoid waste.
- Use a laptop instead of a personal computer, the former consuming less energy than the latter.
On the other hand, home-office in ‘normal’ situations -without being in charge of the children while working- not only has positive repercussions on the environment but also has positive impacts in other aspects:
- By establishing appropriate work patterns, the home office demonstrates an increase in worker productivity by eliminating distractions from colleagues.
- On the emotional side, it reduces the stress caused by traffic on the way to work.
- It allows a better balance between personal and professional life. However, it is advisable to establish fixed working hours at home to avoid ‘working’ all day. (See some tips)
- And on the economic side, there are economic savings from reducing transport, either by buying fewer public transport tickets or by using less petrol in your own car.
This being the case, we see that home-office is good for environmental, occupational and emotional health. What do you think?
And in order to work efficiently from home, I invite you to read some tips written in this blog.
*https://www.umweltarena.ch/lernen/umweltwissen/?fbclid=IwAR2M4Lg6Bs7nKjN1h3WfSJ1sxy05CPoi06K5zdFmaSlX_0niWLWJ0ZZLI9M#nachhaltig_leben
