The remote working revolution is red hot…but is it green? Our new blog explores its environmental impact.
Remote and flexible working is a hot topic. But with the risk of human activity changing our planet’s environment, let’s move from the topical to the tropical – with a look at whether the trend for virtual workplaces is helping or hampering global warming. And with it the future of this pale blue dot we live on.
At first the benefits of going remote seem obvious. Fewer cars, a shortened rush hour, less greenhouse gas escaping into the atmosphere. But there are corollaries: increased use of our homes, different patterns of energy use, an explosion of different devices. Where’s the balance?
Here at Arkadin we’ve surveyed the evidence – and on the whole it’s good news. Remote and flexible working seems to be a strong positive for the environment. Which makes us bullish about our survival as a species. Here are our findings – each with a score, from -5 to +5, as to how negative or positive that effect is.
The greatest outcome of all this: companies are starting to build their budgets around these trends. They’re reducing the number of office workstations, slashing their real estate spending, and cutting their carbon footprints along the way. Substituting driving miles with virtual conferences, office equipment with cloud solutions, bought inventory with BYOD.
Who knows, in as little as ten years’ time, perhaps a majority of workers won’t even have a desk outside their homes…
The environment matters to all of us. But it seems the move towards remote and flexible working is helping us all get greener – and best of all, it’s doing so because it’s a positive business driver. To see how it could help your business, take a virtual tour of Arkadin.
Takeaways:
- Driven by the mobile revolution, today’s computing devices are getting greener
- Remote and flexible working arrangements are becoming mainstream
- The average energy used per computing device is going down
- The carbon footprint and costs of businesses that embrace remote working are lower
More and more businesses are seeing that flexible and remote options aren’t a cost centre, but a business driver. Empower your flexible workforce with collaborative technologies and the training to use them effectively with A Realist’s How To Guide for Flexible Working.
